
J 




/■ 



OEMS 



R;- W. EMERSON. 




BOSTON: 

TICKNOR AND FIELDS. 

I 865. 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1864, by 

TlCKNOK AND FlELDS, 

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of 
Massachusetts. 



University Press: 

Welch, Bigelow, and Company, 

Cambridge. 




CONTENTS. 




Page 

HE Sphinx 7 

Each and All 14 

The Problem 17 

To Rhea 21 



The Visit 

Uriel .... 
The World-Soul . 
Alphonso of Castile 



27 



36 



MlTHRIDATES . . . . . . . . . 41 

... 43 

45 

■ . • 48 

5i 

... 53 



To J. W 

Fate 

Guy 

Tact 

Hamatreya 

Earth-Song 55 

Good-bye . 58 

The Rhodora 60 

The Humble-Bee 62 

Berrying . . . . / . . . . .66 
The Snow-Storm 67 



iv CONTENTS. 

Wood-Notes, 1 69 

Wood-Notes, II 78 

Monadnoc 97 

Fable . . 118 

Ode 120 

Astilea 126 

Eteenne de la Boe"ce 129 

SuUM CUIQUE IJI 

Compensation . . 132 

Forbearance 133 

The Park ......... 134 

Forerunners 136 



sursum corda . 
Ode to Beauty 
Give all to Love 
To Ellen 
To Eva 



138 

*39 

144 



The Amulet 15: 

Thine eyes still shined 152 

Eros 15: 

Hermione 15, 

Initial, Demonic, and Celestial Love . . .159 

The Apology 18: 

Merlin, 1 18 

Merlin, II 18! 

Bacchus 19] 

Loss and Gain 19J 

Merops 197 

The House . 198 

Saadi .......... 200 

Holidays 209 



CONTENTS. v 

Painting and Sculpture . . . . . .211 

From the Persian of Hafiz 21a 

Ghaselle 220 

Xenophanes 222 

The Day's Ration 224 

Blight 226 

Musketaquid zjo 

Dirge 235 

Threnody 239 

Hymn, sung at the Completion of the Concord 

Monument 253 




POEMS. 




THE SPHINX. 

HE Sphinx is drowsy, 
Her wings are furled ; 
Her ear is heavy, 
She broods on the world. 
"Who '11 tell me my secret, 
The ages have kept ? — 
I awaited the seer, 
While they slumbered and slept ; 



" The fate of the man-child ; 

The meaning of man ; 
Known fruit of the unknown ; 

Daedalian plan ; 






8 THE SPHINX. 

Out of sleeping a waking, 
Out of waking a sleep ; 

Like death overtaking ; 
Deep underneath deep ? 

" Erect as a sunbeam, 

Upspringeth the palm ; 
The elephant browses, 

Undaunted and calm ; 
In beautiful motion 

The thrush plies his wings : 
Kind leaves of his covert, 

Your silence he sings. 

" The waves, unashamed, 

In difference sweet, 
Play glad with the breezes, 

Old playfellows meet ; 
The journeying atoms, 

Primordial wholes, 
Firmly draw, firmly drive, 

By their animate poles. 



THE SPHINX. 

" Sea, earth, air, sound, silence, 

Plant, quadruped, bird, 
By one music enchanted, 

One deity stirred, — 
Each the other adorning, 

Accompany still ; 
Night veileth the morning, 

The vapor the hill. 

" The babe by its mother 

Lies bathed in joy ; 
Glide its hours uncounted, — 

The sun is its toy ; 
Shines the peace of all being, 

Without cloud, in its eyes ; 
And the sum of the world 

In soft miniature lies. 

" But man crouches and blushes, 
Absconds and conceals ; 

He creepeth and peepeth, 
He palters and steals ; 



THE SPHINX. 

Infirm, melancholy, 

Jealous glancing around, 
An oaf, an accomplice, 

He poisons the ground. 

" Out spoke the great mother, 

Beholding his fear ; — 
At the sound of her accents 

Cold shuddered the sphere : — 
' Who has drugged my boy's cup ? 

Who has mixed my boy's bread ? 
Who, with sadness and madness, 

Has turned the man-child's head ? ' 

I heard a poet answer, 

Aloud and cheerfully. 
" Say on, sweet Sphinx ! thy dirges 

Are pleasant songs to me ; 
Deep love lieth under 

These pictures of time ; 
They fade in the light of 

Their meaning sublime. 



THE SPHINX. 

" The fiend that man harries 

Is love of the Best ; 
Yawns the pit of the Dragon, 

Lit by rays from the Blest. 
The Lethe of nature 

Can't trance him again, 
Whose soul sees the perfect, 

Which his eyes seek in vain. 

" Profounder, profounder, 

Man's spirit must dive ; 
To his aye-rolling orbit 

No goal will arrive ; 
The heavens that now draw him 

With sweetness untold, 
Once found, — for new heavens 

He spurneth the old 

" Pride ruined the angels, 
Their shame them restores ; 

And the joy that is sweetest 
Lurks in stings of remorse. 



2 THE SPHINX. 

Have I a lover 

Who is noble and free ? — 
I would he were nobler 

Than to love me. 

" Eterne alternation 

Now follows, now flies ; 
And under pain, pleasure, — 

Under pleasure, pain lies. 
Love works at the centre, 

Heart-heaving alway ; 
Forth speed the strong pulses 

To the borders of day. 

" Dull Sphinx, Jove keep thy five wits : 

Thy sight is growing blear ; 
Rue, myrrh, and cumin for the Sphinx — 

Her muddy eyes to clear ! " — 
The old Sphinx bit her thick lip, — 

Said, " Who taught thee me to name ? 
I am thy spirit, yoke-fellow, 

Of thine eye I am eyebeam. 



THE SPHINX. 13 

" Thou art the unanswered question ; 

Couldst see thy proper eye, 
Alway it asketh, asketh ; 

And each answer is a lie. 
So take thy quest through nature, 

It through thousand natures ply; 
Ask on, thou clothed eternity ; 

Time is the false reply." 

Uprose the merry Sphinx, 

And crouched no more in stone ; 
She melted into purple cloud, 

She silvered in the moon ; 
She spired into a yellow flame ; 

She flowered in blossoms red ; 
She flowed into a foaming wave ; 

She stood Monadnoc's head. 

Thorough a thousand voices 

Spoke the universal dame : 
" Who telleth one of my meanings 

Is master of all I am." 




14 EACH AND ALL. 



EACH AND ALL. 

TITTLE thinks, in the field, yon red- 
cloaked clown, 
Of thee from the hill-top looking 
down ; 
The heifer that lows in the upland farm, 
Far-heard, lows not thine ear to charm ; 
The sexton, tolling his bell at noon, 
Deems not that great Napoleon 
Stops his horse, and lists with delight, 
Whilst his files sweep round yon Alpine 

height ; 
Nor knowest thou what argument 
Thy life to thy neighbor's creed has lent. 
All are needed by each one ; 
Nothing is fair or good alone. 
I thought the sparrow's note from heaven, 
Singing at dawn on the alder bough ; 



EACH AND ALL. 15 

I brought him home, in his nest, at even ; 

He sings the song, but it pleases not now, 

For I did not bring home the river and sky ; — 

He sang to my ear, — they sang to my eye. 

The delicate shells lay on the shore ; 

The bubbles of the latest wave 

Fresh pearls to their enamel gave ; 

And the bellowing of the savage sea 

Greeted their safe escape to me. 

I wiped away the weeds and foam, 

I fetched my sea-born treasures home ; 

But the poor, unsightly, noisome things 

Had left their beauty on the shore, 

With the sun and the sand and the wild uproar. 

The lover watched his graceful maid, 

As 'mid the virgin train she strayed, 

Nor knew her beauty's best attire 

Was woven still by the snow-white choir. 

At last she came to his hermitage, 

Like the bird from the woodlands to the cage ; — 

The gay enchantment was undone, 

A gentle wife, but fairy none. 



16 EACH AND ALL. 

Then I said, " I covet truth ; 

Beauty is unripe childhood's cheat ; 

I leave it behind with the games of youth." 

As I spoke, beneath my feet 

The ground-pine curled its pretty wreath, 

Running over the club-moss burrs ; 

I inhaled the violet's breath ; 

Around me stood the oaks and firs ; 

Pine-cones and acorns lay on the ground ; 

Over me soared the eternal sky, 

Full of light and of deity ; 

Again I saw, again I heard, 

The rolling river, the morning bird ; — 

Beauty through my senses stole ; 

I yielded myself to the perfect whole. 




THE PROBLEM. 



THE PROBLEM. 




LIKE a church ; I like a cowl ; 

I love a prophet of the soul ; 

And on my heart monastic aisles 
Fall like sweet strains, or pensive smiles ; 
Yet not for all his faith can see 
Would I that cowled churchman be. 

Why should the vest on him allure, 
Which I could not on me endure ? 

Not from a vain or shallow thought 

His awful Jove young Phidias brought ; 

Never from lips of cunning fell 

The thrilling Delphic oracle ; 

Out from the heart of nature rolled 

The burdens of the Bible old ; 

The litanies of nations came, 

Like the volcano's tongue of flame, 



1 8 THE PROBLEM. 

Up from the burning core below, — 
The canticles of love and woe ; 
The hand that rounded Peter's dome, 
And groined the aisles of Christian Rome, 
Wrought in a sad sincerity ; 
Himself from God he could not free ; 
He builded better than he knew ; — 
The conscious stone to beauty grew. 

Know'st thou what wove yon woodbird's nest 

Of leaves, and feathers from her breast ? 

Or how the fish outbuilt her shell, 

Painting with morn each annual cell ? 

Or how the sacred pine-tree adds 

To her old leaves new myriads ? 

Such and so grew these holy piles, 

Whilst love and terror laid the tiles. 

Earth proudly wears the Parthenon, 

As the best gem upon her zone ; 

And Morning opes with haste her lids, 

To gaze upon the Pyramids ; 

O'er England's abbeys bends the sky, 



THE PROBLEM. 19 

As on its friends, with kindred eye ; 
For, out of Thought's interior sphere, 
These wonders rose to upper air ; 
And Nature gladly gave them place, 
Adopted them into her race, 
And granted them an equal date 
With Andes and with Ararat. 

These temples grew as grows the grass ; 

Art might obey, but not surpass. 

The passive Master lent his hand 

To the vast soul that o'er him planned ; 

And the same power that -reared the shrine, 

Bestrode the tribes that knelt within. 

Ever the fiery Pentecost 

Girds with one flame the countless host, 

Trances the heart through chanting choirs, 

And through the priest the mind inspires. 

The word unto the prophet spoken 
Was writ on tables _yet unbroken ; 
The word by seers or sibyls told, 



o THE PROBLEM. 

In groves of oak, or fanes of gold, 
Still floats upon the morning wind, 
Still whispers to the willing mind. 
One accent of the Holy Ghost 
The heedless world hath never lost. 
I know what say the fathers wise, — 
The Book itself before me lies, 
Old Chrysostom, best Augustine, 
And he who blent both in his line, 
The younger Golden Lips or mines, 
Taylor, the Shakespeare of divines. 
His words are music in my ear, 
I see his cowled portrait dear ; 
And yet, for all his faith could see, 
I would not the good bishop be. 




TO RHEA. 



TO RHEA. 




?HEE, dear friend, a brother soothes, 
Not with flatteries, but truths, 
Which tarnish not, but purify 

To light which dims the morning's eye. 

I have come from the spring-woods, 

From the fragrant solitudes ; — 

Listen what the poplar-tree 

And murmuring waters counselled me. 

If with love thy heart has burned ; 
If thy love is unreturned ; 
Hide thy grief within thy breast, 
Though it tear thee unexpressed ; 
For when love has once departed 
From the eyes of the false-hearted, 
And one by one has torn off quite 
The bandages of purple light ; 



:2 TO RHEA. 

Though thou wert the loveliest 
Form the soul had ever dressed, 
Thou shalt seem, in each reply, 
A vixen to his altered eye ; 
Thy softest pleadings seem too bold, 
Thy praying lute will seem to scold ; 
Though thou kept the straightest road, 
Yet thou errest far and broad. ' 

But thou shalt do as do the gods 
In their cloudless periods ; 
For of this lore be thou sure, — 
Though thou forget, the gods, secure, 
Forget never their command, 
But make the statute of this land. 
As they lead, so follow all, 
Ever have done, ever shall. 
Warning to the blind and deaf, 
'T is written on the iron leaf, 
Who drinks of Cupid 1 s nectar cup, 
Loveth downward, and not up ; 
Therefore, who loves, of gods or men, 



TO RHEA. 23 

Shall not by the same be loved again ; 

His sweetheart's idolatry 

Falls, in turn, a new degree. 

When a god is once beguiled 

By beauty of a mortal child, 

And by her radiant youth delighted, 

He is not fooled, but warily knoweth 

His love shall never be requited. 

And thus the wise Immortal doeth. — 

'T is his study and delight 

To bless that creature day and night ; 

From all evils to defend her ; 

In her lap to pour all splendor ; 

To ransack earth for riches rare, 

And fetch her stars to deck her hair : 

He mixes music with her thoughts, 

And saddens her with heavenly doubts : 

All grace, all good, his great heart knows, 

Profuse in love, the king bestows : 

Saying, " Hearken ! Earth, Sea, Air ! 

This monument of my despair 

Build I to the All- Good, All- Fair. 



24 TO RHEA. 

Not for a private good, 

But I, from my beatitude, 

Albeit scorned as none was scorned, 

Adorn her as was none adorned. 

I make this maiden an ensample 

To Nature, through her kingdoms ample, 

Whereby to model newer races, 

Statelier forms, and fairer faces ; 

To carry man to new degrees 

Of power, and of comeliness. 

These presents be the hostages 

Which I pawn for my release. 

See to thyself, O Universe ! 

Thou art better, and not worse." — 

And the god, having given all, 

Is freed forever from his thrall. 








THE VISIT. 25 



THE VISIT. 

|SKEST, "How long thou shalt 
stay ? " 
Devastator of the day ! 
Know, each substance, and relation, 
Thorough nature's operation, 
Hath its unit, bound, and metre ; 
And every new compound 
Is some product and repeater, — 
Product of the earlier found. 
But the unit of the visit, 
The encounter of the wise, — 
Say, what other metre is it 
Than the meeting of the eyes ? 
Nature poureth into nature 
Through the channels of that feature. 
Riding on the ray of sight, 
More fleet than waves or whirlwinds go, 



26 THE VISIT. 

Or for service, or delight, 

Hearts to hearts their meaning show, 

Sum their long experience, 

And import intelligence. 

Single look has drained the breast ; 

Single moment years confessed. 

The duration of a glance 

Is the term of convenance, 

And, though thy rede be church or state, 

Frugal multiples of that. 

Speeding Saturn cannot halt ; 

Linger, — thou shalt rue the fault ; 

If Love his moment overstay, 

Hatred's swift repulsions play. 





URIEL. 27 



URIEL. 

T fell in the ancient periods 

Which the brooding soul surveys, 
Or ever the wild Time coined itself 



Into calendar months and days. 

This was the lapse of Uriel, 

Which in Paradise befell. 

Once, among the Pleiads walking, 

Said overheard the young gods talking ; 

And the treason, too long pent, 

To his ears was evident. 

The young deities discussed 

Laws of form, and metre just, 

Orb, quintessence, and sunbeams, 

What subsisteth, and what seems. 

One, with low tones that decide, 

And doubt and reverend use defied, 



28 URIEL. 

With a look that solved the sphere, 

And stirred the devils everywhere, 

Gave his sentiment divine 

Against the being of a line. 

" Line in nature is not found ; 

Unit and universe are round ; 

In vain produced, all rays return ; 

Evil will bless, and ice will burn." 

As Uriel spoke with piercing eye, 

A shudder ran around the sky ; 

The stern old war-gods shook their heads ; 

The seraphs frowned from myrtle-beds ; 

Seemed to the holy festival 

The rash word boded ill to all ; 

The balance-beam of Fate was bent ; 

The bounds of good and ill were rent ; 

Strong Hades could not keep his own, 

But all slid to confusion. 

A sad self-knowledge, withering, fell 

On the beauty of Uriel ; 

In heaven once eminent, the god 



URIEL. 29 

Withdrew, that hour, into his cloud ; 

Whether doomed to long gyration 

In the sea of generation, 

Or by knowledge grown too bright 

To hit the nerve of feebler sight. 

Straightway, a forgetting wind 

Stole over the celestial kind, 

And their lips the secret kept, 

If in ashes the fire-seed slept. 

But now and then, truth-speaking things 

Shamed the angels' veiling wings ; 

And, shrilling from the solar course, 

Or from fruit of chemic force, 

Procession of a soul in matter, 

Or the speeding change of water, 

Or out of the good of evil born, 

Came Uriel's voice of cherub scorn, 

And a blush tinged the upper sky, 

And the gods shook, they knew not why. 



I 




3Q THE WORLD-SOUL. 



THE WORLD-SOUL. 

j|HANKS to the morning light, 
Thanks to the foaming sea, 
To the uplands of New- Hampshire, 
To the green-haired forest free ; 
Thanks to each man of courage, 

To the maids of holy mind ; 
To the boy with his games undaunted, 
Who never looks behind. 

Cities of proud hotels, 

Houses of rich and great, 
Vice nestles in your chambers, 

Beneath your roofs of slate. 
It cannot conquer folly, 

Time-and-space-conquering steam, 
And the light-outspeeding telegraph 

Bears nothing on its beam. 



THE WORLD-SOUL. 

The politics are base ; 

The letters do not cheer ; 
And 't is far in the deeps of history, 

The voice that speaketh clear. 
Trade and the streets ensnare us, 

Our bodies are weak and worn ; 
We plot and corrupt each other, 

And we despoil the unborn. 

Yet there in the parlor sits 

Some figure of noble guise, — 
Our angel, in a stranger's form, 

Or woman's pleading eyes ; 
Or only a flashing sunbeam 

In at the window-pane ; 
Or Music pours on mortals 

Its beautiful disdain. 

The inevitable morning 

Finds them who in cellars be ; 
And be sure the all-loving Nature 

Will smile in a factory. 



32 THE WORLD-SOUL. 

Yon ridge of purple landscape, 
Yon sky between the walls, 

Hold all the hidden wonders, 
In scanty intervals. 

Alas ! the Sprite that haunts us 

Deceives our rash desire ; 
It whispers of the glorious gods, 

And leaves us in the mire. 
We cannot learn the cipher 

That 's writ upon our cell ; 
Stars help us by a mystery 

Which we could never spell. 

If but one hero knew it, 

The world would blush in flame ; 
The sage, till he hit the secret, 

Would hang his head for shame. 
But our brothers have not read it, 

Not one has found the key ; 
And henceforth we are comforted, - 

We are but such as they. 



THE WORLD- SOUL. 33 

Still, still the secret presses ; 

The nearing clouds draw down ; 
The crimson morning flames into 

The fopperies of the town. 
Within, without the idle earth, 

Stars weave eternal rings ; 
The sun himself shines heartily, 

And shares the joy he brings. 

And what if Trade sow cities 

Like shells along the shore, 
And thatch with towns the prairie broad, 

With railways ironed o'er ? — - 
They are but sailing foam-bells 

Along Thought's causing stream, 
And take their shape and sun-color 

From him that sends the dream. 

For Destiny does not like 

To yield to men the helm ; 
And shoots his thought, by hidden nerves, 

Throughout the solid realm. 
3 



34 THE WORLD-SOUL. 

The patient Daemon sits, 
With roses and a shroud ; 

He has his way, and deals his gifts, 
But ours is not allowed. 

He is no churl nor trifler, 

And his viceroy is none, — 
Love-without-weakness, — 

Of Genius sire and son. 
And his will is not thwarted ; 

The seeds of land and sea 
Are the atoms of his body bright, 

And his behest obey. 

He serveth the servant, 

The brave he loves amain ; 
He kills the cripple and the sick, 

And straight begins again. 
For gods delight in gods, 

And thrust the weak aside ; 
To him who scorns their charities, 

Their arms fly open wide. 



THE WORLD-SOUL. 35 

When the old world is sterile, 

And the ages are effete, 
He will from wrecks and sediment 

The fairer world complete. 
He forbids to despair ; 

His cheeks mantle with mirth ; 
And the unimagined good of men 

Is yeaning at the birth. 

Spring still makes spring in the mind, 

When sixty years are told ; 
Love wakes anew this throbbing heart, 

And we are never old. 
Over the winter glaciers, 

I see the summer glow, 
And, through the wild-piled snowdrift, 

The warm rosebuds below. 




36 ALPHONSO OF CASTILE. 



ALPHONSO OF CASTILE. 




ALPHONSO, live and learn, 
Seeing Nature go astern. 
Things deteriorate in kind ; 

Lemons run to leaves and rind ; 

Meagre crop of figs and limes ; 

Shorter days and harder times. 

Flowering April cools and dies 

In the insufficient skies. 

Imps, at high midsummer, blot 

Half the sun's disk with a spot : 

'T will not now avail to tan 

Orange cheek or skin of man. 

Roses bleach, the goats are dry, 

Lisbon quakes, the people cry. 

Yon pale, scrawny fisher fools, 

Gaunt as bitterns in the pools, 



ALPHONSO OF CASTILE. 37 

Are no brothers of my blood ; — 

They discredit Adamhood. 

Eyes of gods ! ye must have seen, 

O'er your ramparts as ye lean, 

The general debility ; 

Of genius the sterility ; 

Mighty projects countermanded ; 

Rash ambition, brokenhanded ; 

Puny man and scentless rose 

Tormenting Pan to double the dose. 

Rebuild or ruin : either fill 

Of vital force the wasted rill, 

Or tumble all again in heap 

To weltering chaos and to sleep. 



Say, Seigniors, are the old Niles dry, 
Which fed the veins of earth and sky, 
That mortals miss the loyal heats, 
Which drove them erst to social feats ; 
Now, to a savage selfhess grown, 
Think nature barely serves for one ; 



38 ALPHONSO OF CASTILE. 

With science poorly mask their hurt, 
And vex the gods with question pert, 
Immensely curious whether you 
Still are rulers, or mildew ? 

Masters, I 'm in pain with you ; 
Masters, I '11 be plain with you ; 
In my palace of Castile, 
I, a king, for kings can feel. 
There my thoughts the matter roll, 
And solve and oft resolve the whole. 
And, for I 'm styled Alphonse the Wise, 
Ye shall not fail for sound advice. 
Before ye want a drop of rain, 
Hear the sentiment of Spain. 

You have tried famine : no more try it ; 

Ply us now with a full diet ; 

Teach your pupils now with plenty ; 

For one sun supply us twenty. 

I have thought it thoroughly over, — 

State of hermit, state of lover ; 



ALPHONSO OF CASTILE. 39 

We must have society. 

We cannot spare variety. 

Hear you, then, celestial fellows ! 

Fits not to be over-zealous ; 

Steads not to work on the clean jump, 

Nor wine nor brains perpetual pump. 

Men and gods are too extense ; 

Could you slacken and condense ? 

Your rank overgrowths reduce 

Till your kinds abound with juice ? 

Earth, crowded, cries, 'Too many men J ' 

My counsel is, kill nine in ten, 

And bestow the shares of all 

On the remnant decimal. 

Add their nine lives to this cat ; 

Stuff their nine brains in his hat ; 

Make his frame and forces square 

With the labors he must dare ; 

Thatch his flesh, and even his years 

With the marble which he rears. 

There, growing slowly old at ease, 

No faster than his planted trees, 



4 o ALPHONSO OF CASTILE. 

He may, by warrant of his age, 
In schemes of broader scope engage. 
So shall ye have a man of the sphere, 
Fit to grace the solar year. 




MITHRIDA TES. 



MITHRIDATES. 




CANNOT spare water or wine, 

Tobacco-leaf, or poppy, or rose ; 
From the earth-poles to the line, 
All between that works or grows, 
Everything is kin of mine. 

Give me agates for my meat ; 
Give me cantharids to eat ; 
From air and ocean bring me foods, 
From all zones and altitudes ; — 

From all natures, sharp and slimy, 
Salt and basalt, wild and tame : 

Tree and lichen, ape, sea-lion, 
Bird, and reptile, be my game. 



42 M1THRIDA TES. 

Ivy for my fillet band ; 
Blinding dog- wood in my hand ; 
Hemlock for my sherbet cull me, 
And the prussic juice to lull me ; 
Swing me in the upas boughs, 
Vampyre-fanned, when I carouse. 

.Too long shut in strait and few, 
Thinly dieted on dew, 
I will use the world, and sift it, 
To a thousand humors shift it, 
As you spin a cherry. 
O doleful ghosts, and goblins merry ! 
O all you virtues, methods, mights, 
Means, appliances, delights, 
Reputed wrongs and braggart rights, 
Smug routine, and things allowed, 
Minorities, things under cloud ! 
Hither ! take me, use me, fill me, 
Vein and artery, though ye kill me ! 
God ! I will not be an owl, 
But sun me in the Capitol. 




TO J. W. 43 



TO J. W. 

ET not thy foot on graves ; 
Hear what wine and roses say ; 
The mountain chase, the summer 
waves, 
The crowded town, thy feet may well delay. 



Set not thy foot on graves ; 

Nor seek to unwind the shroud 

Which charitable Time 

And Nature have allowed 

To wrap the errors of a sage sublime. 

Set not thy foot on graves : 

Care not to strip the dead 

Of his sad ornament, 

His myrrh, and wine, and rings, ' 



44 TO J. W. 

His sheet of lead, 

And trophies buried : 

Go, get them where he earned them when 

alive ; 
As resolutely dig or dive. 

Life is too short to waste 

In critic peep or cynic bark, 

Quarrel or reprimand : 

'T will soon be dark ; 

Up ! mind thine own aim, and 

God speed the mark ! 





FA TE. 45 



FATE. 

J] HAT you are fair or wise is vain, 
Or strong, or rich, or generous ; 
You must have also the untaught 
strain 

That sheds beauty on the rose. 

There is a melody born of melody, 

Which melts the world into a sea. 

Toil could never compass it ; 

Art its height could never hit ; 

It came never out of wit ; 

But a music music-born 

Well may Jove and Juno scorn. 

Thy beauty, if it lack the fire 

Which drives me mad with sweet desire, 

What boots it ? what the soldier's mail, 

Unless he conquer and prevail ? 

What all the goods thy pride which lift, 



46 FA TE. 

If thou pine for another's gift ? 

Alas ! that one is born in blight, 

Victim of perpetual slight : 

When thou lookest on his face, 

Thy heart saith, ' Brother, go thy ways ! 

None shall ask thee what thou doest, 

Or care a rush for what thou knowest, 

Or listen when thou repliest, 

Or remember where thou liest, 

Or how thy supper is sodden ; ' 

And another is born 

To make the sun forgotten. 

Surely he carries a talisman 

Under his tongue ; 

Broad are his shoulders and strong ; 

And his eye is scornful, 

Threatening, and young. 

I hold it of little matter 

Whether your jewel be of pure water, 

A rose diamond or a white, 

But whether it dazzle me with light. 

I care not how you are dressed, 



FA TE. 47 

In the coarsest or in the best ; 

Nor whether your name is base or brave ; 

Nor for the fashion of your behavior ; 

But whether you charm me, 

Bid my bread feed and my fire warm me, 

And dress up Nature in your favor. 

One thing is forever good ; 

That one thing is Success, — 

Dear to the Eumenides, 

And to all the heavenly brood. 

Who bides at home, nor looks abroad, 

Carries the eagles, and masters the sword. 




4 8 GUY. 



GUY. 




£|ORTAL mixed of middle clay, 
Attempered to the night and day, 
Interchangeable with things, 

Needs no amulets nor rings. 

Guy possessed the talisman 

That all things from him began ; 

And as, of old, Poly crates 

Chained the sunshine and the breeze, 

So did Guy betimes discover 

Fortune was his guard and lover ; 

In strange junctures, felt, with awe, 

His own symmetry with law ; 

That no mixture could withstand 

The virtue of his lucky hand. 

He gold or jewel could not lose, 

Nor not receive his ample dues. 



GUY. 4 

In the street, if he turned round, 
His eye the eye 't was seeking found. 
It seemed his Genius discreet 
Worked on the Maker's own receipt, 
And made each tide and element 
Stewards of stipend and of rent ; 
So that the common waters fell 
As costly wine into his well. 
He had so sped his wise affairs 
That he caught Nature in his snares : 
Early or late, the falling rain 
Arrived in time to swell his grain ; 
Stream could not so perversely wind 
But corn of Guy's was there to grind ; 
The siroc found it on its way, 
To speed his sails, to dry his hay ; 
And the world's sun seemed to rise, 
To drudge all day for Guy the wise. 
In his rich nurseries, timely skill 
Strong crab with nobler blood did fill ; 
The zephyr in his garden rolled 
From plum-trees vegetable gold ; 
4 



50 GUY. 

And all the hours of the year 
With their own harvest honored were. 
There was no frost but welcome came, 
Nor freshet, nor midsummer flame. 
Belonged to wind and world the toil 
And venture, and to Guy the oil. ' 




TACT. 



TACT. 




pHAT boots it, thy virtue, 
What profit thy parts, 
[ While one thing thou lackest, 



The art of all arts ? 

The only credentials, 
Passport to success ; 

Opens castle and parlor, — 
Address, man, Address. 

The maiden in danger 
Was saved by the swain ; 

His stout arm restored her 
To Broadway again. 

The maid would reward him, - 
Gay company come, — 



52 TACT. 

They laugh, she laughs with them ; 
He is moonstruck and dumb. 



This clinches the bargain ; 

Sails out of the bay ; 
Gets the vote in the senate, 

Spite of Webster and Clay. 

Has for genius no mercy, 
For speeches no heed ; 

It lurks in the eyebeam, 
It leaps to its deed. 

Church, market, and tavern, 
Bed and board, it will sway. 

It has no to-morrow ; 
It ends with to-day. 




HAMATREYA. 



53 



HAMATREYA. 




INOTT, Lee,Willard, Hosmer, Mer- 

iam, Flint, 
Possessed the land which rendered 
to their toil 
Hay, corn, roots, hemp, flax, apples, wool, 

and wood. 
Each of these landlords walked amidst his 

.farm, 
Saying, "Tis mine, my children's, and my 

name's : 
How sweet the west wind sounds in my own 

trees ! 
How graceful climb those shadows on my 

hill! 
I fancy these pure waters and the flags 
Know me, as does my dog : we sympathize ; 
And, I affirm, my actions smack of the soil.' 



54 HAMATREYA. 

Where are these men ? Asleep beneath their 
grounds ; 

And strangers, fond as they, their furrows 
plough. 

Earth laughs in flowers, to see her boastful 
boys 

Earth-proud, proud of the earth which is not 
theirs ; 

Who steer the plough, but cannot steer their 
feet 

Clear of the grave. 

They added ridge to valley, brook to pond, 

And sighed for all that bounded their do- 
main. 

' This suits me for a pasture ; that 's my 
park ; 

We must have clay, lime, gravel, granite- 
ledge, 

And misty lowland, where to go for peat. 

The land is well, — lies fairly to the south. 

'Tis good, when you have crossed the sea 
and back, 



HAMATREYA. 55 

To find the sitfast acres where you left them.' 
Ah ! the hot owner sees not Death, who adds 
Him to his land, a lump of mould the more. 
Hear what the Earth says : — 



EARTH-SONG. 

1 Mine and yours ; 
Mine, not yours. 
Earth endures ; 
Stars abide — 
Shine down in the old sea ; 
Old are the shores ; 
But where are old men ? 
I who have seen much, 
Such have I never seen. 

' The lawyer's deed 
Ran sure, 
In tail, 



56 HAMATREYA. 

To them, and to their heirs 
Who shall succeed, 
Without fail, 
Forevermore. 

' Here is the land, 
Shaggy with wood, 
With its old valley, 
Mound, and flood. 
But the heritors ? 
Fled like the flood's foam, — 
The lawyer, and the laws, 
And the kingdom, 
Clean swept herefrom. 

' They called me theirs, 
Who so controlled me ; 
Yet every one 

Wished to stay, and is gone. 
How am I theirs, 
If they cannot hold me, 
But I hold them?' 



HAMATREYA. 

When I heard the Earth-song, 

I was no longer brave ; 

My avarice cooled 

Like lust in the chill of the grave. 



57 




58 GOOD-BYE. 



GOOD-BYE. 




OOD-BYE, proud world ! I 'm going 

home: 
Thou art not my friend, and I 'm 
not thine. 
Long through thy weary crowds I roam ; 
A river-ark on the ocean brine, 
Long I 've been tossed like the driven foam ; 
But now, proud world ! I 'm going home. 

Good-bye to Flattery's fawning face ; 

To Grandeur with his wise grimace ; 

To upstart Wealth's averted eye ; 

To supple Office, low and high ; 

To crowded halls, to court and street ; 

To frozen hearts and hasting feet ; 

To those who go, and those who come ; 

Good-bye, proud world ! I 'm going home. 



GOOD-BYE. 59 

I am going to my own hearth-stone, 
Bosomed in yon green hills alone, — 
A secret nook in a pleasant land, 
Whose groves the frolic fairies planned ; 
Where arches green, the livelong day, 
Echo the blackbird's roundelay, 
And vulgar feet have never trod 
A spot that is sacred to thought and God. 

O, when I am safe in my sylvan home, 
I tread on the pride of Greece and Rome ; 
And when I am stretched beneath the pines, 
Where the evening star so holy shines, 
I laugh at the lore and the pride of man, 
At the sophist schools, and the learned clan ; 
For what are they all, in their high conceit, 
When man in the bush with God may meet ? 




60 THE RHODORA. 

THE RHODORA: 

ON BEING ASKED, WHENCE IS THE FLOWER? 




N May, when sea-winds pierced our 
solitudes, 
I found the fresh Rhodora in the 
woods, 
Spreading its leafless blooms in a damp nook, 
To please the desert and the sluggish brook. 
The purple petals, fallen in the pool, 
Made the black water with their beauty gay ; 
Here might the red-bird come his plumes to 

cool, 
And court the flower that cheapens his array. 
Rhodora ! if the sages ask thee why 
This charm is wasted on the earth and sky, 
Tell them, dear, that if eyes were made for 

seeing, 
Then Beauty is its own excuse for being : 



THE RHODORA. 



61 



Why thou wert there, rival of the rose ! 
I never thought to ask, I never knew ; 
But, in my simple ignorance, suppose 
The self-same Power that brought me there 
brought you. 




62 THE HUMBLE-BEE. 



THE HUMBLE-BEE. 




[jURLY, dozing humble-bee, 
Where thou art is clime for me. 
Let them sail for Porto Rique, 

Far-off heats through seas to seek ; 

I will follow thee alone, 

Thou animated torrid-zone ! 

Zigzag steerer, desert cheerer, 

Let me chase thy waving lines ; 

Keep me nearer, me thy hearer, 

Singing over shrubs and vines. ■ 

Insect lover of the sun, 
Joy of thy dominion ! 
Sailor of the atmosphere ; 
Swimmer through the waves of air ; 
Voyager of light and noon ; 
Epicurean of June ; 



THE HUMBLE-BEE. 63 

Wait, I prithee, till I come 
Within earshot of thy hum, — 
All without is martyrdom. 

When the south wind, in May days, 
With a net of shining haze 
Silvers the horizon wall, 
And, with softness touching all, 
Tints the human countenance 
With a color of romance, 
And, infusing subtle heats, 
Turns the sod to violets, 
Thou, in sunny solitudes, 
Rover of the underwoods, 
The green silence dost displace 
With thy mellow, breezy bass. 

Hot midsummer's petted crone, 
Sweet to me thy drowsy tone 
Tells of countless sunny hours, 
Long days, and solid banks of flowers ; 



64 THE HUMBLE-BEE. 

Of gulfs of sweetness without bound 
In Indian wildernesses found ; 
Of Syrian peace, immortal leisure, 
Firmest cheer, and bird-like pleasure. 

Aught unsavory or unclean 
Hath my insect never seen j 
But violets and bilberry bells, 
Maple-sap, and daffodels, 
Grass with green flag half-mast high, 
Succory to match the sky, 
Columbine with horn of honey, 
Scented fern, and agrimony, 
Clover, catchfly, adder's-tongue, 
And brier-roses, dwelt among ; 
All beside was unknown waste, 
All was picture as he passed. 

Wiser far than human seer, 
Yellow-breeched philosopher ! 
Seeing only what is fair, 
Sipping only what is sweet, 



THE HUMBLE-BEE. 65 

Thou dost mock at fate and care, 
Leave the chaff, and take the wheat. 
When the fierce northwestern blast 
Cools sea and land so far and fast, 
Thou already slumberest deep ; 
Woe and want thou canst outsleep ; 
Want and woe, which torture us, 
Thy sleep makes ridiculous. 




66 



BERRYING. 




BERRYING. 

AY be true what I had heard, — 

Earth 's a howling wilderness, 
Truculent with fraud and force,' 
Said I, strolling through the pastures, 
And along the river-side. 
Caught among the blackberry vines, 
Feeding on the Ethiops sweet, 
Pleasant fancies overtook me. 
I said, ' What influence me preferred, 
Elect, to dreams thus beautiful ? ' 
The vines replied, i And didst thou deem 
No wisdom to our berries went ? ' 





THE SNOW-STORM. 67 



THE SNOW-STORM. 

ANNOUNCED by all the trumpets 
of the sky, 
Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er 
the fields, 
Seems nowhere to alight : the whited air 
Hides hills and woods, the river, and the 

heaven, 
And veils the farm-house at the garden's end. 
The sled and traveller stopped, the courier's 

feet 
Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates 

sit 
Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed 
In a tumultuous privacy of storm. 

Come see the north wind's masonry. 
Out of an unseen quarry evermore 



68 THE SNOW-STORM. 

Furnished with tile, the fierce artificer 
Curves his white bastions with projected roof 
Round every windward stake, or tree, or 

door. 
Speeding, the myriad-handed, his wild work 
So fanciful, so savage, naught cares he 
For number or proportion. Mockingly, 
On coop or kennel he hangs Parian wreaths ; 
A swan-like form invests the hidden thorn ; 
Fills up the farmer's lane from wall to wall, 
Maugre the farmer's sighs ; and, at the gate, 
A tapering turret overtops the work. 
And when his hours are numbered, and the 

world 
Is all his own, retiring, as he were not, 
Leaves, when the sun appears, astonished Art 
To mimic in slow structures, stone by stone, 
Built in an age, the mad wind's night-work, 
The frolic architecture of the snow. 




WOOD-NOTES. 69 

WOOD-NOTES. 
I. 

1. 

OR this present, hard 
Is the fortune of the bard, 
Born out of time ; 



All his accomplishment, 

From Nature's utmost treasure spent, 

Booteth not him. 
When the pine tosses its cones 
To the song of its waterfall tones, 
He speeds to the woodland walks, 
To birds and trees he talks : 
Cassar of his leafy Rome, 
There the poet is at home. 
He goes to the river-side, — 
Not hook nor line hath he ; 
He stands in the meadows wide, — 
Nor gun nor scythe to see ; 



70 WOOD-NOTES. 

With none has he to do, 
And none seek him, 
Nor men below, 
Nor spirits dim. 

Sure some god his eye enchants : 
What he knows nobody wants. 
In the wood he travels glad, 
Without better fortune had, 
Melancholy without bad. 
Planter of celestial plants, 
What he knows nobody wants ; 
What he knows he hides, not vaunts. 
Knowledge this man prizes best 
Seems fantastic to the rest : 
Pondering shadows, colors, clouds, 
Grass-buds, and caterpillar-shrouds, 
Boughs on which the wild bees settle, 
Tints that spot the violet's petal, 
Why Nature loves the number five, 
And why the star-form she repeats : 
Lover of all things alive, 
Wonderer at all he meets, 



WOOD-NOTES. 7 

Wonderer chiefly at himself, — 
Who can tell him what he is ? 
Or how meet in human elf 
Coming and past eternities ? 

2. 
And such I knew, a forest seer, 
A minstrel of the natural year, 
Foreteller of the vernal ides, 
Wise harbinger of spheres and tides, 
A lover true, who knew by heart 
Each joy the mountain dales impart ; 
It seemed that Nature could not raise 
A plant in any secret place, 
In quaking bog, on snowy hill, 
Beneath the grass that shades the rill, 
Under the snow, between the rocks, 
In damp fields known to bird and fox, 
But he would come in the very hour 
It opened in its virgin bower, 
As if a sunbeam showed the place, • 
And tell its long-descended race. 



72 WOOD-NOTES. 

It seemed as if the breezes brought him ; 
It seemed as if the sparrows taught him ; 
As if by secret sight he knew 
Where, in far fields, the orchis grew. 
Many haps fall in the field 
Seldom seen by wishful eyes, 
But all her shows did Nature yield, 
To please and win this pilgrim wise. 
He saw the partridge drum in the woods ; 
He heard the woodcock's evening hymn ; 
He found the tawny thrush's broods ; 
And the shy hawk did wait for him ; 
What others did at distance hear, . 
And guessed within the thicket's gloom, 
Was showed to this philosopher, 
And at his bidding seemed to come. 

3- 

In unploughed Maine he sought the lumber- 
ers' gang 

Where from a hundred lakes young rivers 
sprang ; 



WOOD-NOTES. 73 

He trode the implanted forest floor, whereon 
The all-seeing sun for ages hath not shone ; 
Where feeds the moose, and walks the surly 

bear, 
And up the tall mast runs the woodpecker. 
He saw beneath dim aisles, in odorous 

beds, 
The slight Linnsea hang its twin-born heads, 
And blessed the monument of the man of 

flowers, 
Which breathes his sweet fame through the 

northern bowers. 
He heard, when in the grove, at intervals, 
With sudden roar the aged pine-tree falls, — 
One crash, the death-hymn of the perfect 

tree, 
Declares the close of its green century. 
Low lies the plant to whose creation went 
Sweet influence from every element ; 
Whose living towers the years conspired to 

build, 
Whose giddy top the morning loved to gild. 



74 WOOD-NOTES. 

Through these green tents, by eldest Nature 

dressed, 
He roamed, content alike with man and 

beast. 
Where darkness found him he lay glad at 

night ; 
There the red morning touched him with its 

light. 
Three moons his great heart him a hermit 

made, 
So long he roved at will the boundless shade. 
The timid it concerns to ask their way ; 
And fear what foe in caves and swamps can 

stray, 
To make no step until the event is known, 
And ills to come as evils past bemoan. 
Not so the wise ; no coward watch he 

keeps 
To spy what danger on his pathway creeps ; 
Go where he will, the wise man is at home, 
His hearth the earth, — his hall the azure 

dome ; 



WOOD-NOTES. 75 

Where his clear spirit leads him, there 's his 
road, 

By God's own light illumined and fore- 
showed. 

4- 
'T was one of the charmed days, 
When the genius of God doth flow, 
The wind may alter twenty ways, 
A tempest cannot blow ; 
It may blow north, it still is warm ; 
Or south, it still is clear ; 
Or east, it smells like a clover farm ; 
Or west, no thunder fear. 
The musing peasant lowly great 
Beside the forest water sate ; 
The rope-like pine roots crosswise grown 
Composed the network of his throne ; 
The wide lake, edged with sand and grass, 
Was burnished to a floor of glass, 
Painted with shadows green and proud, 
Of the tree and of the cloud. 



76 WOOD-NOTES. 

He was the heart of all the scene ; 

On him the sun looked more serene ; 

To hill and cloud his face was known, — 

It seemed the likeness of their own ; 

They knew by secret sympathy 

The public child of earth and sky. 

' You ask,' he said, ' what guide 

Me through trackless thickets led, 

Through thick-stemmed woodlands rough 

and wide ? 
I found the water's bed. 
The watercourses were my guide ; 
I travelled grateful by their side, 
Or through their channel dry ; 
They led me through the thicket damp, 
Through brake and fern, the beavers' camp, 
Through beds of granite cut my road, 
And their resistless friendship showed ; 
The falling waters led me, 
The foodful waters fed me, 
And brought me to the lowest land, 
Unerring to the ocean sand. 



WOOD-NOTES. 77 

The moss upon the forest bark 

Was pole-star when the night was dark, 

The purple berries in the wood 

Supplied me necessary food ; 

For Nature ever faithful is 

To such as trust her faithfulness. 

When the forest shall mislead me, 

When the night and morning lie, 

When sea and land refuse to. feed me, 

'T will be time enough to die ; 

Then will yet my mother yield 

A pillow in her greenest field, 

Nor the June flowers scorn to cover 

The clay of their departed lover. 





78 WOOD-NOTES. 

WOOD-NOTES. 

II. 

^S sunbeams strea?n through liberal 
space, 
And nothing jostle or displace, 
So waved the pine-tree through my thought, - 
And fanned the dreams it never brought. 

' Whether is better the gift or the donor ? 

Come to me,' 

Quoth the pine-tree, 

' I am the giver of honor. 

My garden is the cloven rock, 

And my manure the snow ; 

And drifting sand-heaps feed my stock, 

In summer's scorching glow. 

Ancient or curious, 

Who knoweth aught of us ? 



WOOD-NOTES. 79 

Old as Jove, 

Old as Love, 

Who of me 

Tells the pedigree ? 

Only the mountains old. 

Only the waters cold, 

Only moon and star 

My coevals are. 

Ere the first fowl sung 

My relenting boughs among 

Ere Adam wived, 

Ere Adam lived, 

Ere the duck dived, 

Ere the bees hived, 

Ere the lion roared, 

Ere the eagle soared, 

Light and heat, land and sea, 

Spake unto the oldest tree. 

Glad in the sweet and secret aid 

Which matter unto matter paid, 

The water flowed, the breezes fanned 

The tree confined the roving sand, 



80 WOOD-NOTES. 

The sunbeam gave me to the sight, 

The tree adorned the formless light, 

And once again 

O'er the grave of men 

We shall talk to each other again 

Of the old age behind, 

Of the time out of mind, 

Which shall come again. 

' Whether is better the gift or the donor ? 

Come to me,' 

Quoth the pine-tree, 

' I am the giver of honor. 

He is great who can live by me. 

The rough and bearded forester 

Is better than the lord ; 

God fills the scrip and canister, 

Sin piles the loaded board. 

The lord is the peasant that was, 

The peasant the lord that shall be ; 

The lord is hay, the peasant grass, 

One dry, and one the living tree. 



WOOD-NOTES. 81 

Genius with my boughs shall flourish, 
Want and cold our roots shall nourish. 
Who liveth by the ragged pine 
Foundeth a heroic line ; 
Who liveth in the palace hall 
Waneth fast and spendeth all. 
He goes to my savage haunts, 
With his chariot and his care ; 
My twilight realm he disenchants, 
And finds his prison there. 

' What prizes the town and the tower ? 
Only what the pine-tree yields ; 
Sinew that subdued the fields ; 
The wild-eyed boy, who in the woods 
Chants his hymn to hills and floods, 
Whom the city's poisoning spleen 
Made not pale, or fat, or lean ; 
Whom the rain and the wind purgeth, 
Whom the dawn and the day-star urgeth, 
In whose cheek the rose-leaf blusheth, 
In whose feet tl\e lion rusheth, 
6 



82 WOOD-NOTES. 

Iron arms, and iron mould, 

That know not fear, fatigue, or cold. 

I give my rafters to his boat, 

My billets to his boiler's throat ; 

And I will swim the ancient sea, 

To float my child to victory, 

And grant to dwellers with the pine 

Dominion o'er the palm and vine. 

Westward I ope the forest gates, 

The train along the railroad skates ; 

It leaves the land behind like ages past, 

The foreland flows to it in river fast ; 

Missouri I have made a mart, 

I teach Iowa Saxon art. 

Who leaves the pine-tree, leaves his friend, 

Unnerves his strength, invites his end. 

Cut a bough from my parent stem, 

And dip it in thy porcelain vase ; 

A little while each russet gem 

Will swell and rise with wonted grace ; 

But when it seeks enlarged supplies, 

The orphan of the forest dies. 



WOOD-NOTES. 83 

Whoso walketh in solitude, 

And inhabiteth the wood, 

Choosing light, wave, rock, and bird, 

Before the money-loving herd, 

Into that forester shall pass, 

From these companions, power and grace. 

Clean shall he be., without, within, 

From the old adhering sin. 

Love shall he, but not adulate 

The all-fair, the all-embracing Fate ; 

All ill dissolving in the light 

Of his triumphant piercing sight. 

Not vain, sour, nor frivolous ; 

Not mad, athirst, nor garrulous ; 

Grave, chaste, contented, though retired, 

And of all other men desired. 

On him the light of star and moon 

Shall fall with purer radiance down ; 

All constellations of the sky 

Shed their virtue through his eye. • 

Him Nature giveth for defence 

His formidable innocence ; 



84 WOOD-NOTES. 

The mounting sap, the shells, the sea, 

All spheres, all stones, his helpers be ; 

He shall never be old ; 

Nor his fate shall be foretold ; 

He shall see the speeding year, 

Without wailing, without fear ; 

He shall be happy in his love, 

Like to like shall joyful prove ; 

He shall be happy whilst he woos, 

Muse-born, a daughter of the Muse. 

But if with gold she bind her hair, 

And deck her breast with diamond, 

Take off thine eyes, thy heart forbear, 

Though thou lie alone on the ground. 

The robe of silk in which she shines, 

It was woven of many sins ; 

And the shreds 

Which she sheds 

In the wearing of the same, 

Shall be grief on grief, 

And shame on shame. 



WOOD-NOTES. 85 

' Heed the old oracles, 

Ponder my spells ; 

Song wakes in my pinnacles 

When the wind swells. 

Soundeth the prophetic wind, 

The shadows shake on the rock behind, 

And the countless leaves of the pine are 

strings 
Tuned to the lay the wood-god sings. 

Hearken ! Hearken ! 
If thou wouldst know the mystic song 
Chanted when the sphere was young. 
Aloft, abroad, the paean swells ; 
O wise man ! hear'st thou half it tells ? 
O wise man ! hear'st thou the least part ? 
'T is the chronicle of art. 
To the open ear it sings 
Sweet the genesis of things, 
Of tendency through endless ages, 
Of star-dust, and star-pilgrimages, 
Of rounded worlds, of space and time, 
Of the old flood's subsiding slime, 



86 WOOD-NOTES. 

Of chemic matter, force, and form, 

Of poles and powers, cold, wet, and warm : 

The rushing metamorphosis, 

Dissolving all that fixture is, 

Melts things that be to things that seem, 

And solid nature to a dream. 

O, listen to the undersong — 

The ever old, the ever young ; 

And, far within those cadent pauses, 

The chorus of the ancient Causes ! 

Delights the dreadful Destiny 

To fling his voice into the tree, 

And shock thy weak ear with a note 

Breathed from the everlasting throat. 

In music he repeats the pang 

Whence the fair flock of Nature sprang. 

O mortal ! thy ears are stones ; 

These echoes are laden with tones 

Which only the pure can hear ; 

Thou canst not catch what they recite 

Of Fate and Will, of Want and Right, 



WOOD-NOTES. 87 

Of man to come, of human life, 

Of Death, and Fortune, Growth, and Strife.' 

Once again the pine-tree sung : — 
' Speak not thy speech my boughs among ; 
Put off thy years, wash in the breeze ; 
My hours are peaceful centuries. 
Talk no more with feeble tongue ; 
No more the fool of space and time, 
Come weave with mine a nobler rhyme. 
Only thy Americans 
Can read thy line, can meet thy glance, 
But the runes that I rehearse 
Understands the universe ; 
The least breath my boughs which tossed 
Brings again the Pentecost ; 
To every soul it soundeth clear 
In a voice of solemn cheer, — 
" Am I not thine ? Are not these thine ? " 
And they reply, " Forever mine ! " 
My branches speak Italian, 
English, German, Basque, Castilian, 



88 WOOD-NOTES. 

Mountain speech to Highlanders, 
Ocean tongues to islanders, 
To Fin, and Lap, and swart Malay, 
To each his bosom secret say. 

Come learn with me the fatal song 
Which knits the world in music strong, 
Whereto every bosom dances, 
Kindled with courageous fancies. 
Come lift thine eyes to lofty rhymes, 
Of things with things, of times with times, 
Primal chimes of sun and shade, 
Of sound and echo, man and maid, 
The land reflected in the flood, 
Body with shadow still pursued. 
For Nature beats in perfect tune, 
And rounds with rhyme her every rune, 
Whether she work in land or sea, 
Or hide underground her alchemy. 
Thou canst not wave thy staff in air, 
Or dip thy paddle in the lake, 
But it carves the bow of beauty there, 
And the ripples in rhymes the oar forsake. 



WOOD-NOTES. 89 

The wood is wiser far than thou ; 

The wood and wave each other know. 

Not unrelated, unaffied, 

But to each thought and thing allied, 

Is perfect Nature's every part, 

Rooted in the mighty Heart. 

But thou, poor child ! unbound, unrhymed, 

Whence earnest thou, misplaced, mistimed ? 

Whence, O thou orphan and defrauded ? 

Is thy land peeled, thy realm marauded ? 

Who thee divorced, deceived, and left ? 

Thee of thy faith who hath bereft, 

And torn the ensigns from thy brow, 

And sunk the immortal eye so low ? 

Thy cheek too white,' thy form too slender, 

Thy gait too slow, thy habits tender 

For royal man ; — they thee confess 

An exile from the wilderness, — 

The hills where health with health agrees, 

And the wise soul expels disease. 

Hark ! in thy ear I will tell the sign 

By which thy hurt thou may'st divine. 



9Q WOOD-NOTES. 

When thou shalt climb the mountain cliff, 
Or see the wide shore from thy skiff, 
To thee the horizon shall express 
Only emptiness and emptiness ; 
There is no man of Nature's worth 
In the circle of the earth ; 
And to thine eye the vast skies fall, 
Dire and satirical, 

On clucking hens, and prating fools, 
On thieves, on drudges, and on dolls. 
And thou shalt say to the Most High, 
" Godhead ! all this astronomy, 
And fate, and practice, and invention, 
Strong art, and beautiful pretension, 
This radiant pomp of sun and star, 
Throes that were, and worlds that are, 
Behold ! were in vain and in vain ; — 
It cannot be, — I will look again ; 
Surely now will the curtain rise, 
And earth's fit tenant me surprise ; — 
But the curtain doth ?wt rise, 



WOOD-NOTES. 

And Nature has miscarried wholly 
Into failure, into folly." 

' Alas ! thine is the bankruptcy, 

Blessed Nature so to see. 

Come, lay thee in my soothing shade, 

And heal the hurts which sin has made. 

I will teach the bright parable 

Older than time, 

Things undeclarable, 

Visions sublime. 

I see thee in the crowd alone ; 

I will be thy companion. 

Let thy friends be as the dead in doom, 

And build to them a final tomb ; 

Let the starred shade that nightly falls 

Still celebrate their funerals, 

And the bell of beetle and of bee 

Knell their melodious memory. 

Behind thee leave thy merchandise, 

Thy churches, and thy charities ; 



92 WOOD-NOTES. 

And leave thy peacock wit behind ; 
Enough for thee the primal mind 
That flows in streams, that breathes in wind. 
Leave all thy pedant lore apart ; 
God hid the whole world in thy heart. 
Love shuns the sage, the child it crowns, 
And gives them all who all renounce. 
The rain comes when the wind calls ; 
The river knows the way to the sea ; 
Without a pilot it runs and falls, 
Blessing all lands with its charity ; 
The sea tosses and foams to fino! 
Its way up to the cloud and wind ; 
The shadow sits close to the flying ball ; 
The date fails not on the palm-tree tall ; 
And thou, — go burn thy wormy pages, — 
Shalt outsee seers, and outwit sages. 
Oft didst thou thread the woods in vain 
To find what bird had piped the strain ; — 
Seek not, and the little eremite 
Flies gayly forth and sings in sight. 



WOOD-NOTES. 93 

' Hearken once more ! 

I will tell thee the mundane lore. 

Older am I than thy numbers wot ; 

Change I may, but I pass not. 

Hitherto all things fast abide, 

And anchored in the tempest ride. 

Trenchant time behooves to hurry 

All to yean and all to bury : 

All the forms are fugitive, 

But the substances survive. 

Ever fresh the broad creation, 

A divine improvisation, 

From the heart of God proceeds, 

A single will, a million deeds. 

Once slept the world an egg of stone, 

And pulse, and sound, and light was none ; 

And God said, " Throb ! " and there was 

motion, 
And the vast mass became vast ocean. 
Onward and on, the eternal Pan, 
Who layeth the world's incessant plan, 



94 WOOD-NOTES. 

Halteth never in one shape, 

But forever doth escape, 

Like wave or flame, into new forms 

Of gem, and air, of plants, and worms. 

I, that to-day am a pine, 

Yesterday was a bundle of grass. 

He is free and libertine, 

Pouring of his power the wine 

To every age, to every race ; 

Unto every race and age 

He emptieth the beverage ; 

Unto each, and unto all, 

Maker and original. 

The world is the ring of his spells, 

And the play of his miracles. 

As he giveth to all to drink, 

Thus or thus they are and think. 

He giveth little or giveth much, 

To make them several or such. 

With one drop sheds form and feature ; 

With the second a special nature ; 



WOOD-NOTES. 95 

The third adds heat's indulgent spark ; 

The fourth gives light which eats the dark : 

Into the fifth himself he flings, 

And conscious Law is King of kings. 

Pleaseth him, the Eternal Child, 

To play his sweet will, glad and wild ; 

As the bee through the garden ranges, 

From world to world the godhead changes ; 

As the sheep go feeding in the waste, 

From form to form he maketh haste ; 

This vault which glows immense with light 

Is the inn where he lodges for a night. 

What recks such Traveller if the bowers 

Which bloom and fade like meadow flowers 

A bunch of fragrant lilies be, 

Or the stars of eternity ? 

Alike to him the better, the worse, — 

The glowing angel, the outcast corse. 

Thou metest him by centuries, 

And lo ! he passes like the breeze ; 

Thou seek'st in globe and galaxy, 

He hides in pure transparency ; 



96 WOOD-NOTES. 

Thou askest in fountains and in fires, 

jie is the essence that inquires. 

He is the axis of the star ; 

He is the sparkle of the spar ; 

He is the heart of every creature ; 

He is the meaning of each feature ; 

And his mind is the sky, 

Than all it holds more deep, more high.' 





MONAD NO C. 97 



MONADNOC. 

[jHOUSAND minstrels woke within 

me, 
' Our music 's in the hills ' ; — 
Gayest pictures rose to win me, 

Leopard-colored rills. 
' Up ! — If thou knew'st who calls 
To twilight parks of beech and pine, 
High over the river intervals, 
Above the ploughman's highest line, 
Over the owner's farthest walls ! 
Up ! where the airy citadel 
O'erlooks the surging landscape's swell ! 
Let not unto the stones the Day 
Her lily and rose, her sea and land display. 
Read the celestial sign ! 
Lo ! the south answers to the north ; 
Bookworm, break this sloth urbane ; 

7 



98 MONADNOC. 

A greater spirit bids thee forth 

Than the gray dreams which thee detain. 

Mark how the climbing Oreads 

Beckon thee to their arcades ! 

Youth,- for a moment free as they, 

Teach thy feet to feel the ground, 

Ere yet arrives the wintry day 

When Time thy feet has bound. 

Take the bounty of thy birth, 

Taste the lordship of the earth.' 

I heard, and I obeyed, — 
Assured that he who made the claim, 
Well known, but loving not a name, 

Was not to be gainsaid. 

Ere yet the summoning voice was still, 
"" I turned to Cheshire's haughty hill. 
From the fixed cone the cloud-rack flowed, 
Like ample banner flung abroad 
To all the dwellers in the plains 



MONADNOC. 99 

Round about, a hundred miles, 
With salutation to the sea, and to the border- 
ing isles. 

In his own loom's garment dressed, 
By his proper bounty blessed, 
Fast abides this constant giver, 
Pouring many a cheerful river ; 
To far eyes, an aerial isle 
Unploughed, which finer spirits pile, 
Which morn and crimson evening paint 
For bard, for lover, and for saint ; 
The people's pride, the country's core, 
Inspirer, prophet evermore ; 
Pillar which God aloft had set 
So that men might it not forget ; 
It should be their life's ornament, 
And mix itself with each event ; 
This their calendar and dial, 
Weatherglass and chemic phial, 
Garden of berries, perch of birds, 
Pasture of pool-haunting herds, 



ioo MONADNOC. 

Graced by each change of sum untold, 
Earth-baking heat, stone-cleaving cold. 

The Titan heeds his sky-affairs, 
Rich rents and wide alliance shares ; 
Mysteries of color daily laid 
By the sun in light and shade ; 
And sweet varieties of chance, 
And the mystic seasons' dance ; 
And thief-like step of liberal hours 
Thawing snow-drift into flowers. 
O, wondrous craft of plant and stone 
By eldest science done and shown ! 

' Happy,' I said, ' whose home is here ! 
Fair fortunes to the mountaineer ! 
Boon Nature to his poorest shed 
Has royal pleasure-grounds outspread.' 
Intent, I searched the region round, 
And in low hut my monarch found : — 
Woe is me for my hope's downfall ! 
Is yonder squalid peasant all 



MONAD-NOC. 

That this proud nursery could breed 

For God's vicegerency and stead ? 

Time out of mind, this forge of ores ; 

Quarry of spars in mountain pores ; 

Old cradle, hunting-ground, and bier 

Of wolf and otter, bear and deer ; 

Well-built abode of many a race ; 

Tower of observance searching space ; 

Factory of river and of rain ; 

Link in the alps' globe-girding chain ; 

By million changes skilled to tell 

What in the Eternal standeth well, 

And what obedient Nature can ; — 

Is this colossal talisman 

Kindly to creature, blood, and kind, 

Yet speechless to the master's mind ? 

I thought to find the patriots 

In whom the stock of freedom roots : 

To myself I oft recount 

Tales of many a famous mount, — 

Wales, Scotland, Uri, Hungary's dells ; 

Bards, Roys, Scanderbegs, and Tells. 



102 MONADNOC. 

Here Nature shall condense her powers, 
Her music, and her meteors, 
And lifting man to the blue deep 
Where stars their perfect courses keep, 
Like wise preceptor, lure his eye 
To sound the science of the sky, 
And carry learning to its height 
Of untried power and sane delight : 
The Indian cheer, the frosty skies, 
Rear purer wits, inventive eyes, — 
Eyes that frame cities where none be, 
And hands that stablish what these see ; 
And by the moral of his place 
Hint summits of heroic grace ; 
Man in these crags a fastness find 
To fight pollution of the mind ; 
In the wide thaw and ooze of wrong, 
Adhere like this foundation strong, 
The insanity of towns to stem 
With simpleness for stratagem. 
But if the brave old mould is broke, 
And end in churls the mountain folk, 



MONAD NOC. 103 

In tavern cheer and tavern joke, 
Sink, mountain, in the swamp ! 
Hide in thy skies, O sovereign lamp ! 
Perish like leaves, the highland breed ! 
No sire survive, no son succeed ! 

Soft ! let not the offended muse 
Toil's hard hap with scorn accuse. 
Many hamlets sought I then, 
Many farms of mountain men ; 
Found I not a minstrel seed, 
But men of bone, and good at need. 
Rallying round a parish steeple 
Nestle warm the highland people, 
Coarse and boisterous, yet mild, 
Strong as giant, slow as child, 
Smoking in a squalid room 
Where yet the westland breezes come. 
Close hid in those rough guises lurk 
Western magians, — here they work. 
Sweat and season are their arts, 
Their talismans are ploughs and carts ; 



104 MONADNOC. 

And well the youngest can command 
Honey from the frozen land ; 
With sweet hay the wild swamp adorn, 
Change the running sand to corn ; 
For wolves and foxes, lowing herds, 
And for cold mosses, cream and curds ; 
Weave wood to canisters and mats ; 
Drain sweet maple juice in vats. 
No bird is safe that cuts the air 
. From their rifle or their snare : 
No fish, in river or in lake, 
But their long hands it thence will take ; 
And the country's flinty face, 
Like wax, their fashioning skill betrays, 
To fill the hollows, sink the hills, 
Bridge gulfs, drain swamps, build dams and 

mills, 
And fit the bleak and howling place 
For gardens of a finer race. 

The World-soul knows his own affair, 
Forelooking, when he would prepare 



MO NAD NO C. 105 

For the next ages, men of mould 

Well embodied, well ensouled, 

He cools the present's fiery glow, 

Sets the life-pulse strong but slow : 

Bitter winds and fasts austere 

His quarantines and grottos, where 

He slowly cures decrepit flesh, 

And brings it infantile and fresh. 

These exercises are the toys 

And games to breathe his stalwart boys : 

They bide their time, and well can prove, 

If need were, their line from Jove ; 

Of the same stuff, and so allayed, 

As that whereof the sun is made, 

And of the fibre, quick and strong, 

Whose throbs are love, whose thrills are song. 



Now in sordid weeds they sleep, 
In dulness now their secret keep ; 
Yet, will you learn our ancient speech, 
These the masters who can teach. 



106 MONADNOC. 

Fourscore or a hundred words 

All their vocal muse affords ; 

But they turn them in a fashion 

Past clerks' or statesmen's art or passion. 

I can spare the college bell, 

And the learned lecture, well ; 

Spare the clergy and libraries, 

Institutes and dictionaries, 

For that hardy English root 

Thrives here, unvalued, underfoot. 

Rude poets of the tavern hearth, 

Squandering your unquoted mirth, 

Which keeps the ground, and never soars, 

While Jake retorts, and Reuben roars ; 

Scoff of yeoman strong and stark, 

Goes like bullet to its mark ; 

While the solid curse and jeer 

Never balk the waiting ear. 

To student ears keen relished jokes 

On truck, and stock, and farming folks, — 

Naught the mountain yields thereof, 

But savage health and sinews tough. 



MO^ADNOC. 107 

On the summit as I stood, 
O'er the floor of plain and flood 
Seemed to me, the towering hill 
Was not altogether still, 
But a quiet sense conveyed ; 
If I err not, thus it said : — 

' Many feet in summer seek, 
Betimes, my far-appearing peak ; 
In the dreaded winter time, 
. None save dappling shadows climb, 
Under clouds, my lonely head, 
Old as the sun, old almost as the shade. 
And comest thou 

To see strange forests and new snow, 
And tread uplifted land ? 
And leavest thou thy lowland race, 
Here amid clouds to stand ? 
And wouldst be my companion, 
Where I gaze, and still shall gaze, 
Through tempering nights and flashing days, 
When forests fall and man is gone, 



108 MONADNOC. 

Over tribes and over times, 
At the burning Lyre, 
Nearing me, 

With its stars of northern fire, 
In many a thousand years ? 

' Ah ! welcome, if thou bring 
My secret in thy brain ; 
To mountain-top may Muse's wing 
With good allowance strain. 
Gentle pilgrim, if thou know 
The gamut old of Pan, 
And how the hills began, 
The frank blessings of the hill 
Fall on thee, as fall they will. 
'T is the law of bush and stone, 
Each can only take his own. 

' Let him heed who can and will ; 
Enchantment fixed me here 
To stand the hurts of time, until 
In mightier chant I disappear. 



MONADNOC. 109 

' If thou trowest 
How the chemic eddies play, 
Pole to pole, and what they say 
And that these gray crags 
Not on crags are hung, 
But beads are of a rosary 
On prayer and music strung ; 
And, credulous, through the granite seeming, 
Seest the smile of Reason beaming ; — 
Can thy style-discerning eye 
The hidden-working Builder spy, 
Who builds, yet makes no chips, no din, 
With hammer soft as snow-flake's flight ; — 
Knowest thou this ? 
O pilgrim, wandering not amiss ! 
Already my rocks lie light, 
And soon my cone will spin. 

■ For the world was built in order, 
And the atoms march in tune ; 
Rhyme the pipe, and Time the warder, 
Cannot forget the sun, the moon. 



no MONADNOC. 

Orb and atom forth they prance, 
When they hear from far the rune ; 
None so backward in the troop, 
When the music and the dance 
Reach his place and circumstance, 
But knows the sun-creating sound, 
And, though a pyramid, will bound. 

' Monadnoc is a mountain strong, 

Tall and good my kind among ; 

But well I know, no mountain can 

Measure with a perfect man. 

For it is on zodiacs writ, 

Adamant is soft to wit : 

And when the greater comes again 

With my secret in his brain, 

I shall pass, as glides my shadow 

Daily over hill and meadow. 

' Through all time, in light, in gloom, 
Well I hear the approaching feet 
On the flinty pathway beat 



MONADNOC. i] 

Of him that cometh, and shall come ; 
Of him who shall as lightly bear 
My daily load of woods and streams, 
As doth this round sky-cleaving boat 
Which never strains its rocky beams ; 
Whose timbers, as they silent float, 
Alps and Caucasus uprear, 
And the long Alleghanies here, 
And all town-sprinkled lands that be, 
Sailing through stars with all their history. 



i Every morn I lift my head, 

Gaze o'er New England underspread, 

South from Saint Lawrence to the Sound, 

From Katskill east to the sea-bound. 

Anchored fast for many an age, 

I await the bard and sage, 

Who, in large thoughts, like fair pearl-seed, 

Shall string Monadnoc like a bead. 

Comes that cheerful troubadour, 

This mound shall throb his face before, 



U2 MONADNOC. 

As when, with inward fires and pain, 
It rose a bubble from the plain. 
When he cometh, I shall shed, 
From this wellspring in my head, 
Fountain-drop of spicier worth 
Than all vintage of the earth. 
There 's fruit upon my barren soil 
Costlier far than wine or oil. 
There 's a berry blue and gold, — 
Autumn-ripe, its juices hold 
Sparta's stoutness, Bethlehem's heart, 
Asia's rancor, Athens' art, 
Slowsure Britain's secular might, 
And the German's inward sight. 
I will give my son to eat 
Best of Pan's immortal meat, 
Bread to eat, and juice to drink ; 
So the thoughts that he shall think 
Shall not be forms of stars, but stars, 
Nor pictures pale, but Jove and Mars. 
He comes, but not of that race bred 
Who daily climb my specular head. 



MONADNOC. 113 

Oft as morning wreathes my scarf, 

Fled the last plumule of the Dark, 

Pants up hither the spruce clerk 

From South Cove and City Wharf. 

I take him up my rugged sides, 

Half-repentant, scant of breath, — 

Bead-eyes my granite chaos show, 

And my midsummer snow ; 

Open the daunting map beneath, — 

All his county, sea and land, 

Dwarfed to measure of his hand ; 

His day's ride is a furlong space, 

His city-tops a glimmering haze. 

I plant his eyes on the sky-hoop bounding : 

" See there the grim gray rounding 

Of the bullet of the earth 

Whereon ye sail, 

Tumbling steep 

In the uncontinented deep." 

He looks on that, and he turns pale. 

'T is even so ; this treacherous kite, 

Farm-furrowed, town-incrusted sphere, 



ii4 MONADNOC. 

Thoughtless of its anxious freight, 

Plunges eyeless on forever ; 

And he, poor parasite, 

Cooped in a ship he cannot steer, — 

Who is the captain he knows not, 

Port or pilot trows not, — 

Risk or ruin he must' share. 

I scowl on him with my cloud, 

With my north wind chill his blood ; 

I lame him, clattering down the rocks ; 

And to live he is in fear. 

Then, at last, I let him down 

Once more into his dapper town, 

To chatter, frightened, to his clan, 

And forget me if he can.' 

As in the old poetic fame 
The gods are blind and lame, 
And the simular despite 
Betrays the more abounding might, 
So call not waste that barren cone 
Above the floral zone, 



MONADNOC. 115 

Where forests starve : 

It is pure use ; — 

What sheaves like those which here we glean 

and bind 
Of a celestial Ceres and the Muse ? 

Ages -are thy days, 

Thou grand expresser of the present tense, 

And type of permanence ! 

Firm ensign of the fatal Being, 

Amid these coward shapes of joy and grief, 

That will not bide the seeing ! 

Hither we bring 

Our insect miseries to the rocks ; 
And the whole flight, with pestering wing, 
Vanish, and end their murmuring, — 
Vanish beside these dedicated blocks, 
Which who can tell what mason laid ? 
Spoils of a front none need restore, 
Replacing frieze and architrave ; — 
Yet flowers each stone rosette and metope 
brave ; 



n6 MONADNOC. 

Still is the haughty pile erect 
Of the old building Intellect. 



Complement of human kind, 

Having us at vantage still, 

Our sumptuous indigence, 

O barren mound, thy plenties fill ! 

We fool and prate ; 

Thou art silent and sedate. 

To myriad kinds and times one sense 

The constant mountain doth dispense ; 

Shedding on all its snows and leaves, 

One joy it joys, one grief it grieves. 

Thou seest, O watchman tall, 

Our towns and races grow and fall, 

And imagest the stable good 

For which we all our lifetime grope, 

In shifting form the formless mind, 

And though the substance us elude, 

We in thee the shadow find. 

Thou, in our astronomy 



MONAD NO C. 

An opaker star, 

Seen haply from afar, 

Above the horizon's hoop, 

A moment, by the railway troop, 

As o'er some bolder height they speed, - 

By circumspect ambition, 

By errant gain, 

By feasters and the frivolous, — 
/ Recallest us, 
I And makest sane. 

Mute orator ! well skilled to plead, 

And send conviction without phrase, 

Thou dost supply 

The shortness of our days, 

And promise, on thy Founder's truth, 

Long morrow to this mortal youth. 




nS FABLE. 



FABLE. 




jjHE mountain and the squirrel 

Had a quarrel ; 

And the former called the latter 
' Little Prig.' 
Bun replied, 

' You are doubtless very big ; 
But all sorts of things and weather 
Must be taken in together, 
To make up a year 
And a sphere. 
And I think it no disgrace 
To occupy my place. 
If I 'm not so large as you, 
You are not so small as I, 
And not half so spry. 
I '11 not deny you make 



FABLE. 

A very pretty squirrel track ; 
Talents differ ; all is well and wisely put ; 
If I cannot carry forests on my back, 
Neither can you crack a nut.' 




ODE. 



ODE, 



INSCRIBED TO W. H. CHINNING. 




j|HOUGH loath to grieve 
The evil time's sole patriot, 
I cannot leave 

My honeyed thought 

For the priest's cant, 

Or statesman's rant. 

If I refuse 

My study for their politique, 

Which at the best is trick, 

The angry Muse 

Puts confusion in my brain. 

But who is he that prates 
Of the culture of mankind, 



ODE, 121 

Of better arts and life ? 
Go, blindworm, go, 
Behold the famous States 
Harrying Mexico 
With rifle and with knife ! 

Or who, with accent bolder, 

Dare praise the freedom-loving mountaineer ? 

I found by thee, O rushing Contoocook ! 

And in thy valleys, Agiochook ! 

The jackals of the negro-holder. 

The God who made New Hampshire 

Taunted the lofty land 

With little men ; — 

Small bat and wren 

House in the oak : — 

If earth-fire cleave 

The upheaved land, and bury the folk, 

The Southern crocodile would grieve. 



Virtue palters ; Right is hence \ 
Freedom praised, but hid ; 
Funeral eloquence 
Rattles the coffin-lid. 

What boots thy zeal, 
O glowing friend, 
That would indignant rend 
The Northland from the South ? 
Wherefore ? to what good end ? 
Boston Bay and Bunker Hill 
Would serve things still ; — 
Things are of the snake. 

The horseman serves the horse, 
The neatherd serves the neat, 
The merchant serves the purse, 
The eater serves his meat ; 
'T is the day of the chattel, 
Web to weave, and corn to grind ; 
Things are in the saddle, 
And ride mankind. 



ODE. 123 

There are two laws discrete, 

Not reconciled, — 

Law for man, and law for thing ; 

The last builds town and fleet, 

But it runs wild, 

And doth the man unking. 

'T is fit the forest fall, 
The steep* be graded, 
The mountain tunnelled, 
The sand shaded, 
The orchard planted, 
The glebe tilled, 
The prairie granted, 
The steamer built. 

Let man serve law for man ; 
Live for friendship, live for love, 
For truth's and harmony's behoof ; 
The state may follow how it can, 
As Olympus follows Jove. 



124 ODE. 

Yet do not I implore 
The wrinkled shopman to my sounding woods, 
Nor bid the unwilling senator 
Ask votes of thrushes in the solitudes. 
Every one to his chosen work ; — 
Foolish hands may mix and mar ; 
Wise and sure the issues are. 
Round they roll till dark is light, 
Sex to sex, and even to odd ; — 
The over-god 

Who marries Right to Might, 
Who peoples, unpeoples, — 
He who exterminates 
Races by stronger races, 
Black by white faces, — 
Knows to bring honey 
Out of the lion ; 
Grafts gentlest scion 
On pirate and Turk. 

The Cossack eats Poland, 
Like stolen fruit : 



ODE. 125 

Her last noble is ruined, 
Her last poet mute : 
Straight, into double band 
The victors divide ; 
Half for freedom strike and stand ; — 
The astonished Muse finds thousands at her 
side. 




126 ASTR^A. 



A S TRJE A. 




ACH the herald is who wrote 
His rank, and quartered his own coat. 
There is no king nor sovereign state 

That can fix a hero's rate ; 

Each to all is venerable, 

Cap-a-pie invulnerable, 

Until he write, where all eyes rest, 

Slave or master on his breast. 

I saw men go up and down, 
In the country and the town, 
With this tablet on their neck, — 
' Judgment and a judge we seek.' 
Not to monarchs they repair, 
Nor to learned jurist's chair ; 
But they hurry to their peers, 
To their kinsfolk and their dears ; 



ASTR^EA. 

Louder than with speech they pray, — 
'What am I ? companion, say.' 
And the friend not hesitates 
To assign just place and mates ; 
Answers not in word or letter, 
Yet is understood the better ; 
Each to each a looking-glass, 
Reflects his figure that doth pass. 
Every wayfarer he meets 
What himself declared repeats, 
What himself confessed records, 
Sentences him in his words ; 
The form is his own corporal form, 
And his thought the penal worm. 

Yet shine forever virgin minds, 
Loved by stars and purest winds, 
Which, o'er passion throned sedate, 
Have not hazarded their state ; 
Disconcert the searching spy, 
Rendering to a curious eye 



128 ASTRjEA. 

The durance of a granite ledge 

To those who gaze from the sea's edge. 

It is there for benefit ; 

It is there for purging light ; 

There for purifying storms ; 

And its d'epths reflect all forms ; 

It cannot parley with the mean, — 

Pure by impure is not seen. 

For there 's no sequestered grot, 

Lone mountain tarn, or isle forgot, 

But Justice, journeying in the sphere, 

Daily stoops to harbor there. 




ETIENNE DE LA BOECE. 




ETIENNE DE LA BOECE. 

SERVE you not, if you I follow, 
Shadowlike, o'er hill and hollow ; 
And bend my fancy to your leading, 

All too nimble for my treading. 

When the pilgrimage is done, 

And we 've the landscape overrun, 

I am bitter, vacant, thwarted, 

And your heart is unsupported 

Vainly valiant, you have missed 

The manhood that should yours resist, — 

Its complement ; but if I could, 

In severe or cordial mood, 

Lead you rightly to my altar, 

Where the wisest Muses falter, 

And worship that world-warming spark 

Which dazzles me in midnight dark, 
9 



130 ETIENNE DE LA BOECE. 

Equalizing small and large, 
While the soul it doth surcharge, 
That the poor is wealthy grown, 
And the hermit never alone, — 
The traveller and the road seem one 
With the errand to be done, — 
That were a man's and lover's part, 
That were Freedom's whitest chart. 




SUUM CUIQUE. 



131 



SUUM CUIQUE. 




j]HE rain has spoiled the farmer's day ; 
Shall sorrow put my books away ? 
Thereby are two days lost : 
Nature shall mind her own affairs ; 
I will attend my proper cares, 
In rain, or sun, or frost. 




132 



COMPENSA TION. 



COMPEN SATI ON. 



THY should I keep holiday 

When other men have none ? 
Why but because, when these are 
gay, 
I sit and mourn alone ? 



And why, when mirth unseals all tongues, 
Should mine alone be dumb ? 

Ah ! late I spoke to silent throngs, 
And now their hour is come. 



FORBEARANCE. 



m 




FORBEARANCE. 

AST thou named all the birds with- 
out a gun ? 
Loved the wood-rose, and left it on 
its stalk ? 
At rich men's tables eaten bread and pulse ? 
Unarmed, faced danger with a heart of trust ? 
And loved so well a high behavior, 
In man or maid, that thou from speech re- 
frained, 
Nobility more nobly to repay ? 
O, be my friend, and teach me to be thine ! 




134 THE PARK. 



THE PARK. 




HE prosperous and beautiful 

To me seem not to wear 
The yoke of conscience masterful, 



Which galls me everywhere. 

I cannot shake off the god ; 

On my neck he makes his seat ; 
I look at my face in the glass, — 

My eyes his eyeballs meet. 

Enchanters ! enchantresses ! 

Your gold makes you seem wise ; 
The morning mist within your grounds 

More proudly rolls, more softly lies. 



THE PARK. 



135 



Yet spake yon purple mountain, 

Yet said yon ancient wood, 
That Night or Day, that Love or Crime, 

Leads all souls to the Good. 




136 FORERUNNERS. 



FORERUNNERS. 




ONG I followed happy guides, 
I could never reach their sides ; 
Their step is forth, and, ere the day, 

Breaks up their leaguer, and away. 

Keen my sense, my heart was young, 

Right good-will my sinews strung, 

But no speed of mine avails 

To hunt upon their shining trails. 

On and away, their hasting feet 

Make the morning proud and sweet ; 

Flowers they strew, — I catch the scent ; 

Or tone of silver instrument 

Leaves on the wind melodious trace ; 

Yet I could never see their face. 

On eastern hills I see their smokes, 

Mixed with mist by distant lochs. 



FORER UNNERS. 1 3 7 

I met many travellers 

Who the road had surely kept ; 

They saw not my fine revellers, — 

These had crossed them while they slept. 

Some had heard their fair report, 

In the country or the court. 

Fleetest couriers alive 

Never yet could once arrive, 

As they went or they returned, 

At the house where these sojourned. 

Sometimes their strong speed they slacken, 

Though they are not overtaken ; 

In sleep their jubilant troop is near, — 

I tuneful voices overhear ; 

It may be in wood or waste, — 

At unawares 't is come and past. 

Their near camp my spirit knows 

By signs gracious as rainbows. 

I thenceforward, and long after, 

Listen for their harp-like laughter, 

And carry in my heart, for days, 

Peace that hallows rudest ways. 



138 SURSUM CORD A. 



SURSUM CORD A. 




EEK not the spirit, if it hide 
Inexorable to 'thy zeal : 
Baby, do not whine and chide : 
Art thou not also real ? 
Why shouldst thou stoop to poor excuse ? 
Turn on the accuser roundly ; say, 
' Here am I, here will I remain 
Forever to myself soothfast ; 
Go thou, sweet Heaven, or at thy pleasure 

stay ! ' 
Already Heaven with thee its lot has cast, 
For only it can absolutely deal. 



ODE TO BEAUTY, 



ODE TO BEAUTY. 



139 




HO gave thee, O Beauty, 
The keys of this breast, - 
Too credulous lover 

Of blest and unblest ? 

Say, when in lapsed ages 

Thee knew I of old ? 

Or what was the service 

For which I was sold ? 

When first my eyes saw thee, 

I found me thy thrall, 

By magical drawings, 

Sweet tyrant of all ! 

I drank at thy fountain 

False waters of thirst ; 

Thou intimate stranger, 

Thou latest and first ! 



i 4 o ODE TO BEAUTY. 

Thy dangerous glances 
Make women of men ; 
New-born, we are melting 
Into nature again. 

Lavish, lavish promiser, 
Nigh persuading gods to err ! 
Guest of million painted forms, 
Which in turn thy glory warms ! 
The frailest leaf, the mossy bark, 
The acorn's cup, the rain-drop's arc, 
The swinging spider's silver line, 
The ruby of the drop of wine, 
The shining pebble of the pond, 
Thou inscribest with a bond, 
In thy momeiitary play, 
Would bankrupt nature to repay. 

Ah, what avails it 
To hide or to shun 
Whom the Infinite One 
Hath granted his throne ? 



ODE TO BEAUTY. 141 

The heaven high over 

Is the deep's lover ; 

The sun and sea, 

Informed by thee, 

Before me run, 

And draw me on, 

Yet fly me still, 

As Fate refuses 

To me the heart Fate for me chooses. 

Is it that my opulent soul 

Was mingled from the generous whole ; 

Sea-valleys and the deep of skies 

Furnished several supplies ; 

And the sands whereof I 'm made 

Draw me to them, self-betrayed ? 

I turn the proud portfolios 

Which hold the grand designs 

Of Salvator, of Guercino, 

And Piranesi's lines. 

I hear the lofty paeans 

Of the masters of the shell, 

Who heard the starry music 



142 ODE TO BEAUTY. 

And recount the numbers well ; 

Olympian bards who sung 

Divine Ideas below, 

Which always find us young, 

And always keep us so. 

Oft, in streets or humblest places, 

I detect far-wandered graces, 

Which, from Eden wide astray, 

In lowly homes have lost their way. 

Thee gliding through the sea of form, 
Like the lightning through the storm, 
Somewhat not to be possessed, 
Somewhat not to be caressed, 
No feet so fleet could ever find, 
No perfect form could ever bind. 
Thou eternal fugitive, 
Hovering over all that live, 
Quick and skilful to inspire 
Sweet, extravagant desire, 
Starry space and lily-bell 
Filling with thy roseate smell, 



ODE TO BEAUTY. 143 

Wilt not give the lips to taste 
Of the nectar which thou hast. 

All that 's good and great with thee 

Works in close conspiracy ; 

Thou hast bribed the dark and lonely 

To report thy features only, 

And the cold and purple morning 

Itself with thoughts of thee adorning ; 

The leafy dell, the city mart, 

Equal trophies of thine art ; 

E'en the flowing azure air 

Thou hast touched for my despair ; 

And, if I languish into dreams, 

Again I meet the ardent beams. 

Queen of things ! I dare not die 

In Being's deeps past ear and eye ; 

Lest there I find the same deceiver, 

And be the sport of Fate forever. 

Dread Power, but dear ! if God thou be, 

Unmake me quite, or give thyself to me ! 



i 4 4 



GIVE ALL TO LOVE. 



GIVE ALL TO LOVE. 




IVE all to love ; 

Obey thy heart ; 

Friends, kindred, days. 
Estate, good-fame, 
Plans, credit, and the Muse, — 
Nothing refuse. 



'T is a brave master ; 
Let it have scope : 
Follow it utterly, 
Hope beyond hope : 
High and more high 
It dives into noon, 
With wing unspent, 
Untold intent ; 



GIVE A LI TO LOVE. 145 

But it is a god, 
Knows its own path, 
And the outlets of the sky. 

It was not for the mean ; 
It requireth courage stout, 
Souls above doubt, 
Valor unbending ; 
Such 't will reward, — 
They shall return 
More than they were, 
And ever ascending. 

Leave all for love ; 

Yet, hear me, yet, 

One word more thy heart behoved, 

One pulse more of firm endeavor, — 

Keep thee to-day, 

To-morrow, forever, 

Free as an Arab 

Of thy beloved. 



146 GIVE ALL TO LOVE. 

Cling with life to the maid ; 

But when the surprise, 

First vague shadow of surmise 

Flits across her bosom young 

Of a joy apart from thee, 

Free be she, fancy-free ; 

Nor thou detain her vesture's hem, 

Nor the palest rose she flung 

From her summer diadem. 

Though thou loved her as thyself, 

As a self of purer clay, 

Though her parting dims the day, 

Stealing grace from all alive ; * 

Heartily know, 

When half-gods go, 

The gods arrive. 



TO ELLEN. 147 



TO ELLEN, 

AT THE SOUTH. 

HE green grass is bowing, 

The morning wind is in it ; 
'T is a tune worth thy knowing, 
Though it change every minute. 



'T is a tune of the spring ; 

Every year plays it over 
To the robin on the wing, 

And to the pausing lover. 

O'er ten thousand, thousand acres, 
Goes light the nimble zephyr ; 

The Flowers — tiny sect of Shakers - 
Worship him ever. 




148 TO ELLEN. 

Hark to the winning sound ! 

They summon thee, dearest, — 
Saying, 'We have dressed for thee the ground, 

Nor yet thou appearest. 

' O hasten ; 't is our time, 

Ere yet the red Summer 
Scorch our delicate prime, 

Loved of bee, — the tawny hummer. 

' O pride of thy race ! 

Sad, in sooth, it were to ours, 
If our brief tribe miss thy face, 

We poor New England flowers. 

1 Fairest, choose the fairest members 

Of our lithe society ; 
June's glories and September's 

Show our love and piety. 

' Thou shalt command us all, — 
April's cowslip, summer's clover, 



TO ELLEN. 



149 



To the gentian in the fall, 

Blue-eyed pet of blue-eyed lover. 

1 O come, then, quickly come ! 

We are budding, we are blowing ; 
And the wind that we perfume 

Sings a tune that 's worth the knowing.' 




i5o 



TO EVA. 



TO EVA. 




H(] FAIR and stately maid, whose eyes 



Were kindled in the upper skies 
At the same torch that lighted 
mine ; 
For so I must interpret still 
Thy sweet dominion o'er my will, 
A sympathy divine. 



Ah ! let me blameless gaze upon 
Features that seem at heart my own ; 

Nor fear those watchful sentinels, 
Who charm the more their glance forbids, 
Chaste-glowing, underneath their lids, 

With fire that draws while it repels. 




THE AMULET, 151 



THE AMULET. 

fjOUR picture smiles as first it 
smiled ; 
The ring you gave is still the same ; 
Your letter tells, O changing child ! 
No tidings since it came. 

Give me an amulet 

That keeps intelligence with you, — 
Red when you love, and rosier red, 

And when you love not, pale and blue. 

Alas ! that neither bonds nor vows 

Can certify possession ; 
Torments me still the fear that love 

Died in its last expression. 



152 THINE EYES STILL SHINED. 



THINE EYES STILL SHINED. 




gjHINE eyes still shined for me, 
though far 
I lonely roved the land or sea : 
As I behold yon evening star, 
Which yet beholds not me. 

This morn I climbed the misty hill, 
And roamed the pastures through ; 

How danced thy form before my path 
Amidst the deep-eyed dew ! 

When the redbird spread his sable wing, 
And showed his side of flame ; 

When the rosebud ripened to the rose, 
In both I read thy name. 



EROS. 



153 



EROS. 




HE sense of the world is short, — 
Long and various the report, — - 
To love and be beloved ; 
Men and gods have not outlearned it ; 
And, how oft soe'er they 've turned it, 
'T is not to be improved. 




154 HERMIONE. 



HERMIONE. 




N a mound an Arab lay, 
And sung his sweet regrets, 
And told his amulets : 

The summer bird 

His sorrow heard, 

And, when he heaved a sigh profound, 

The sympathetic swallow swept the ground. 

' If it be, as they said, she was not fair, 
Beauty 's not beautiful to me, 
But sceptred genius, aye inorbed, 
Culminating in her sphere. 
This Hermione absorbed 
The lustre of the land and ocean, 
Hills and islands, cloud and tree, 
In her form and motion. 



HERMIONE. 155 

1 1 ask no bawble miniature, 
Nor ringlets dead 
Shorn from her comely head, 
Now that morning not disdains 
Mountains and the misty plains 
Her colossal portraiture ; 
They her heralds be, 
Steeped in her quality, 
And singers of her fame 
Who is their Muse and dame. 

' Higher, dear swallows ! mind not what I say. 

Ah ! heedless how the weak are strong, 

Say, was it just, 

In thee to frame, in me to trust, 

Thou to the Syrian couldst belong ? 

I am of a lineage 

That each for each doth fast engage ; 
In old Bassora's schools, I seemed 
Hermit vowed to books and gloom, — 



156 HERMIONE. 

Ill-bested for gay bridegroom. 
I was by thy touch redeemed ; 
When thy meteor glances came, ' 
We talked at large of worldly fate, 
And drew truly every trait. 

Once I dwelt apart, 

Now I live with all ; 

As shepherd's lamp on far hillside 

Seems, by the traveller espied,. 

A door into the mountain heart, 

So didst thou quarry and unlock 

Highways for me through the rock. 

Now, deceived, thou wanderest 

In strange lands unblest ; 

And my kindred come to soothe me. 

Southwind is my next of blood ; 

He is come through fragrant wood, 

Drugged with spice from climates warm, 

And in every twinkling glade, 



HER MI ONE. 157 

And twilight nook, 

Unveils thy form. 

Out of the forest way 

Forth paced it yesterday ; 

And when I sat by the watercourse, 

Watching the daylight fade, 

It throbbed up from the brook. 

1 River, and rose, and crag, and bird, 

Frost, and sun, and eldest night, 

To me their aid preferred, 

To me their comfort plight ; — 

" Courage ! we are thine allies, 

And with this hint be wise, — 

The chains of kind 

The distant bind ; 

Deed thou doest she must do, 

Above her will, be true ; 

And, in her strict resort 

To winds and waterfalls, 

And autumn's sunlit festivals, 

To music, and to music's thought, 



i 5 8 



HERMIONE. 



Inextricably bound, 
She shall find thee, and be found. 
Follow not her flying feet ; 
Come to us herself to meet." ' 




THE INITIAL LOVE. 159 



INITIAL, DEMONIC, AND 
CELESTIAL LOVE. 



THE INITIAL LOVE. 

]ENUS, when her son was lost, 
Cried him up and down the coast, 
In hamlets, palaces, and parks, 

And told the truant by his marks, — 

Golden curls, and quiver, and bow. 

This befell long ago. 

Time and tide are strangely changed, 

Men and manners much deranged : 

None will now find Cupid latent 

By this foolish antique patent. 

He came late along the waste, 

Shod like a traveller for haste ; 




160 THE INITIAL LOVE. 

With malice dared me to proclaim him, 
That the maids and boys might name him. 

Boy no more, he wears all coats, 

Frocks, and blouses, capes, capotes ; 

He bears no bow, or quiver, or wand, 

Nor chaplet on his head or hand. 

Leave his weeds and heed his eyes, — 

All the rest he can disguise. 

In the pit of his eye 's a spark 

Would bring back day if it were dark ; 

And, if I tell you all my thought, 

Though I comprehend it not, 

In those unfathomable orbs 

Every function he absorbs. 

He doth eat, and drink, and fish, and shoot, 

And write, and reason, and compute, 

And ride, and run, and have, and hold, 

And whine, and flatter, and regret, 

And kiss, and couple, and beget, 

By those roving eyeballs bold. 

Undaunted are their courages, 



THE INITIAL LOVE. 

Right Cossacks in their forages ; 

Fleeter they than any creature, — 

They are his steeds, and not his feature ; 

Inquisitive, and fierce, and fasting, 

Restless, predatory, hasting ; 

And they pounce on other eyes 

As lions on their prey ; 

And round their circles is writ, 

Plainer than the day, 

Underneath, within, above, — 

Love — love — love — love. 

He lives in his eyes ; 

There doth digest, and work, and spin, 

And buy, and sell, and lose, and win ; 

He rolls them with delighted motion, 

Joy-tides swell their mimic ocean. 

Yet holds he them with taughtest rein, 

That they may seize and entertain 

The glance that to their glance opposes, 

Like fiery honey sucked from roses. 

He palmistry can understand, 

Imbibing virtue by his hand 



1 62 THE INITIAL LOVE. 

As if it were a living root ; 
The pulse of hands will make him mute ; 
With all his force he gathers balms 
Into those wise, thrilling palms. 

Cupid is a casuist, 

A mystic, and a cabalist, — 

Can your lurking thought surprise, 

And interpret your device. 

He is versed in occult science, 

In magic, and in clairvoyance ; 

Oft he keeps his fine ear strained, 

And Reason on her tiptoe pained 

For aery intelligence, 

And for strange coincidence. 

But it touches his quick heart 

When Fate by omens takes his part, 

And chance-dropt hints from Nature's sphere 

Deeply soothe his anxious ear. 

Heralds high before him run ; 
He has ushers many a one ; 



THE INITIAL LOVE. 163 

He spreads his welcome where he goes, 
And touches all things with his rose. 
All things wait for and divine him, — 
How shall I dare to malign him, 
Or accuse the god of sport ? 
I must end my true report, 
Painting him from head to foot, 
In as far as I took note, 
Trusting well the matchless power 
Of this young-eyed emperor 
Will clear his fame from every cloud, 
With the bards and with the crowd. 

He is wilful, mutable, 
Shy, untamed, inscrutable, 
Swifter-fashioned than the fairies, 
Substance mixed of pure contraries ; 
His vice some elder virtue's token, 
And his good is evil-spoken. 
Failing sometimes of his own, 
He is headstrong and alone ; 
He affects the wood and wild, 



1 64 THE INITIAL LOVE. 

Like a flower-hunting child ; 

Buries himself in summer waves, 

In trees, with beasts, in mines, and caves ; 

Loves nature like a horned cow, 

Bird, or deer, or caribou. 

Shun him, nymphs, on the fleet horses ! 

He has a total world of wit ; 

O how wise are his discourses ! 

But he is the arch-hypocrite, 

And, through all science and all art, 

Seeks alone his counterpart. 

He is a Pundit of the East, 

He is an augur and a priest, 

And his soul will melt in prayer, 

But word and wisdom is a snare ; 

Corrupted by the present toy 

He follows joy, and only joy. 

There is no mask but he will wear ; 

He invented oaths to swear ; 

He paints, he carves, he chants, he prays, 

And holds all stars in his embrace, 



THE INITIAL LOVE. 165 

Godlike, — but 't is for his fine pelf, 

The social quintessence of self. 

Well said I he is hypocrite, 

And folly the end of his subtle wit ! 

He takes a sovran privilege 

Not allowed to any liege ; 

For he does go behind all law, 

And right into himself does draw ; 

For he is sovereignly allied, — 

Heaven's oldest blood flows in his side, — 

And interchangeably at one 

With every king on every throne, 

That no god dare say him nay, 

Or see the fault, or seen betray : 

He has the Muses by the heart, 

And the Parcae all are of his part. 

His many signs cannot be told ; 

He has not one mode, but manifold, — 

Many fashions and addresses, 

Piques, reproaches, hurts, caresses, 

Arguments, lore, poetry, 

Action, service, badinage ; 



1 66 THE INITIAL LOVE. 

He will preach like a friar, 

And jump like Harlequin ; 

He will read like a crier, 

And fight like a Paladin. 

Boundless is his memory ; 

Plans immense his term prolong ; 

He is not of counted age, 

Meaning always to be young. 

And his wish is intimacy, 

Intimater intimacy, 

And a stricter privacy ; 

The impossible shall yet be done, 

And, being two, shall still be one. 

As the wave breaks to foam on shelves, 

Then runs into a wave again, 

So lovers melt their sundered selves, 

Yet melted would be twain. 




THE CELESTIAL LOVE. 167 

II. 

THE DEMONIC AND THE CELESTIAL LOVE. 

^|AN was made of social earth, 
Child and brother from his birth, 
Tethered by a liquid cord 
Of blood through veins of kindred poured. 
Next his heart the fireside band 
Of mother, father, sister, stand : 
Names from awful childhood heard 
Throbs of a wild religion stirred ; — 
Virtue, to love, to hate them, vice ; 
Till dangerous Beauty came, at last, 
Till Beauty came to snap all ties ; 
The maid, abolishing the past, 
With lotus wine obliterates 
Dear memory's stone-incarved traits, 
And, by herself, supplants alone 
Friends year by year more inly known. 
When her calm eyes opened bright, 
All were foreign in their light. 



168 THE DEMONIC AND 

It was ever the self-same tale, 
The first experience will not fail ; 
Only two in the garden walked, 
And with snake and seraph talked. 

But God said, 

' I will have a purer gift ; 

There is smoke in the flame ; 

New flowerets bring, new .prayers uplift, 

And love without a name. 

Fond children, ye desire 

To please each other well ; 

Another round, a higher, 

Ye shall climb on the heavenly stair, 

And selfish preference forbear ; 

And in right deserving, 

And without a swerving 

Each from your proper state, 

Weave roses for your mate, 

' Deep, deep are loving eyes, 
Flowed with naphtha fiery sweet ; 



THE CELESTIAL LOVE. 169 

And the point is paradise, 

Where their glances meet : 

Their reach shall yet be more profound, 

And a vision without bound ; 

The axis of those eyes sun-clear 

Be the axis of the sphere : 

So shall trie-lights ye pour amain 

Go, without check or intervals, 

Through from the empyrean walls 

Unto the same again.' 



Close, close to men, 

Like undulating layer of air, 

Right above their heads, - 

The potent plain of Daemons spreads. 

Stands to each human soul its own, 

For watch, and ward, and furtherance, 

In the snares of Nature's dance ; 

And the lustre and the grace 

To fascinate each youthful heart, 

Beaming from its counterpart, 

Translucent through the mortal covers, 



170 THE DEMONIC AND 

Is the Daemon's form and face. 

To and fro the Genius hies, — 

A gleam which plays and hovers 

Over the maiden's head, 

And dips sometimes as low as to her eyes 

Unknown, albeit lying near, 

To men, the path to the Daemon, sphere ; 

And they that swiftly come and go 

Leave no track on the heavenly snow. 

Sometimes the airy synod bends, 

And the mighty choir descends, 

And the brains of men thenceforth, 

In crowded and in still resorts, 

Teem with unwonted thoughts : 

As, when a shower of meteors 

Cross the orbit of the earth, 

And, lit by fringent air, 

Blaze near and far, 

Mortals deem the planets bright 

Have slipped their sacred bars, 

And the lone seaman all the night 

Sails, astonished, amid stars. 



THE CELESTIAL LOVE. 

Beauty of a richer vein, 

Graces of a subtler strain, 

Unto men these moonmen lend, 

And our shrinking sky extend. 

So is man's narrow path 

By strength and terror skirted ; 

Also, (from the song the wrath 

Of the Genii be averted ! 

The Muse the truth uncolored speaking,) 

The Daemons are self-seeking : 

Their fierce and limitary will 

Draws men to their likeness still. 

The erring painter made Love blind, — 

Highest Love who shines on all ; 

Him, radiant, sharpest-sighted god, 

None can bewilder ; 

Whose eyes pierce 

The universe, 

Path-finder, road-builder, 

Mediator, royal giver ; 

Rightly seeing, rightly seen, 

Of joyful and transparent mien. 



172 THE DEMONIC AND 

'T is a sparkle passing 

From each to each, from thee to me, 

To and fro perpetually ; 

Sharing all, daring all, 

Levelling, displacing 

Each obstruction, it unites 

Equals remote, and seeming opposites. 

And ever and forever Love 

Delights to build a road : 

Unheeded Danger near him strides, 

Love laughs, and on a lion rides. 

But Cupid wears another face, 

Born into Daemons less divine : 

His roses bleach apace, 

His nectar smacks of wine. 

The Daemon ever builds a wall, 

Himself encloses and includes, 

Solitude in solitudes : 

In like sort his love doth fall. 

He is an oligarch ; 

He prizes wonder, fame, and mark ; 

He loveth crowns ; 



THE CELESTIAL LOVE. 173 

He scorneth drones ; 

He doth elect 

The beautiful and fortunate, 

And the sons of intellect, 

And the souls of ample fate, 

Who the Future's gates unbar, — 

Minions of the Morning Star. 

In his prowess he exults, 

And the multitude insults. 

His impatient looks devour 

Oft the humble and the poor ; 

And, seeing his eye glare, 

They drop their few pale flowers, 

Gathered with hope to please, 

Along the mountain towers, — 

Lose courage, and despair. 

He will never be gainsaid, — 

Pitiless, will not be stayed ; 

His hot tyranny 

Burns up every other tie. 

Therefore comes an hour from Jove 

Which his ruthless will defies, 



174 THE DEMONIC AND 

And the dogs of Fate unties. 

Shiver the palaces of glass ; 

Shrivel the rainbow-colored walls, 

Where in bright Art each god and sibyl dwelt, 

Secure as in the zodiac's belt ; 

And the galleries and halls, 

Wherein every siren sung, 

Like a meteor pass. 

For this fortune wanted root 

In the core of God's abysm, — 

Was a weed of self and schism ; 

And ever the Daemonic Love 

Is the ancestor of wars, 

And the parent of remorse. 




THE CELESTIAL LOVE. 175 



HIGHER far, 

Upward into the pure realm, 

Over sun and star, 
Over the flickering Daemon film, 
Thou must mount for love ; 
Into vision where all form 
In one only form dissolves ; 
In a region where the wheel 
On which all beings ride 
Visibly revolves ; 
Where the starred, eternal worm 
Girds the world with bound and term ; 
Where unlike things are like ; 
Where good and ill, 
And joy and moan, 
Melt into one. 

There Past, Present, Future shoot 
Triple blossoms from one root ; 



176 THE CELESTIAL LOVE. 

Substances at base divided 

In their summits are united ; 

There the holy essence rolls, 

One through separated souls ; 

And the sunny ^Eon sleeps 

Folding Nature in its deeps 

And every fair and every good, 

Known in part, or known impure, 

To men below, 

In their archetypes endure. 

The race of gods, 

Or those we erring own, 

Are shadows flitting up and down 

In the still abodes. 

The circles of that sea are laws 

Which publish and which hide the cause. 

Pray for a beam 

Out of that sphere, 

Thee to guide and to redeem. 

O, what a load 

Of care and toil, 



THE CELESTIAL LOVE. 

By lying use bestowed, 

From his shoulders falls who sees 

The true astronomy, 

The period of peace. , 

Counsel which the ages kept 

Shall the well-born soul accept. 

As the overhanging trees 

Fill the lake with images, — 

As garment draws the garment's hem, 

Men their fortunes bring with them. 

By right or wrong, 

Lands and goods go to the strong. 

Property will brutely draw 

Still to the proprietor ; 

Silver to silver creep and wind, 

And kind to kind. 

Nor less the eternal poles 
Of tendency distribute souls. 
There need no vows to bind 
Whom not each other seek, but find. 
They give and take no pledge or oath, - 



178 THE CELESTIAL LOVE. 

Nature is the bond of both : 
No prayer persuades, no flattery fawns, 
Their noble meanings are their pawns. 
Plain and cold is their address, 
Power have they for tenderness ; 
And, so thoroughly is known 
Each other's counsel by his own, 
They can parley without meeting ; 
Need is none of forms of greeting ; 
They can well communicate 
In their innermost estate ; 
When each the other shall avoid, 
Shall each by each be most enjoyed. 

Not with scarfs or perfumed gloves 
Do these celebrate their loves ; 
Not by jewels, feasts, and savors, 
Not by ribbons or by favors, 
But by the sun-spark on the sea, 
And the cloud-shadow on the lea, 
The soothing lapse of morn to mirk, 
And the cheerful round of work. 



THE CELESTIAL LOVE. 179 

Their cords of love so public are, 
They intertwine the farthest star : 
The throbbing sea, the quaking earth, 
Yield sympathy and signs of mirth ; 
Is none so high, so mean is none, 
But feels and seals this union ; 
Even the fell Furies are appeased, 
The good applaud, the lost are eased. 

Love's hearts are faithful, but not fond, 
Bound for the just, but not beyond ; 
Not glad, as the low-loving herd, 
Of self in other still preferred, 
But they have heartily designed 
The benefit of broad mankind. 
And they serve men austerely, 
After their own genius, clearly, 
Without a false humility ; 
For this is Love's nobility, — 
Not to scatter bread and gold, 
Goods and raiment bought and sold ; 
But to hold fast his simple sense, 



i8o 



THE CELESTIAL LOVE. 



And speak the speech of innocence, 
And with hand, and body, and blood, 
To make his bosom-counsel good. 
For he that feeds men serveth few ; 
He serves all who dares be true. 




THE APOLOGY. 



THE APOLOGY. 



HINK me not unkind and rude 
That I walk alone in grove and 
glen; 

I go to the god of the wood 
To fetch his word to men. 




Tax not my sloth that I 

Fold my arms beside the brook ; 
Each cloud that floated in the sky 

Writes a letter in my book, 



Chide me not, laborious band, 
For the idle flowers I brought ; 

Every aster in my hand 

Goes home loaded with a thought. 



82 THE APOLOGY. 

There was never mystery 

But 't is figured in the flowers ; 

Was never secret history 

But birds tell it in the bowers. 

One harvest from thy field 

Homeward brought the oxen strong ; 
A second crop thine acres yield, 

Which I gather in a song. 




MERLIN. 



183 



MERLIN. 



I. 




t HY trivial harp will never please 

Or fill my craving ear ; 

Its chords should ring as blows the 
breeze, 
Free, peremptory, clear. 
No jingling serenader's art, 
Nor tinkle of piano strings, 
Can make the wild blood start 
In its mystic springs. 
The kingly bard 

Must smite the chords rudely and hard, 
As with hammer or with mace ; 
That they may render back 
Artful thunder, which conveys 
Secrets of the solar track, 



1 84 MERLIN. 

Sparks of the supersolar blaze. 

Merlin's blows are strokes of fate, 

Chiming with the forest tone, 

When boughs buffet boughs in the wood ; 

Chiming with the gasp and moan 

Of the ice-imprisoned flood ; 

With the pulse of manly hearts ; 

With the voice of orators ; 

With the din of city arts ; 

With the cannonade of wars ; 

With the marches of the brave ; 

And prayers, of might from martyrs' cave. 



Great is the art, 

Great be the manners, of the bard. 

He shall not his brain encumber 

With the coil of rhythm and number ; 

But, leaving rule and pale forethought, 

He shall aye climb 

For his rhyme. 

' Pass in, pass in,' the angels say, 



MERLIN. 185 

' In to the upper doors, 

Nor count compartments of the floors, 

But mount to paradise 

By the stairway of surprise.' 

Blameless master of the games, 
King of sport that never shames, 
He shall daily joy dispense 
Hid in song's sweet influence. 
Things more cheerly live and go, 
What time the subtle mind 
Sings aloud the tune whereto 
Their pulses beat, 
And march their feet, 
And their members are combined. 

By Sybarites beguiled, 

He shall no task decline ; 

Merlin's mighty line 

Extremes of nature reconciled, — 

Bereaved a tyrant of his will, 

And made the lion mild. 



1 86 MERLIN. 

Songs can the tempest still, 
Scattered on the stormy air, 
Mould the year to fair increase, 
And bring in poetic peace. 



He shall not seek to weave, 

In weak, unhappy times, 

Efficacious rhymes ; 

Wait his returning strength. 

Bird, that from the nadir's floor 

To the zenith's top can soar, 

The soaring orbit of the muse exceeds that 

journey's length. 
Nor profane affect to hit 
Or compass that, by meddling wit, 
Which only the propitious mind 
Publishes when 't is inclined. 
There are open hours 
When the God's will sallies free, 
And the dull idiot might see 
The flowing fortunes of a thousand years ; — 



MERLIN. 

Sudden, at unawares, 
Self-moved, fly-to the doors, 
Nor sword of angels could reveal 
What they conceal. 



187 




MERLIN. 



II. 




i|HE rhyme of the poet 
Modulates the king's affairs ; 
Balance-loving Nature 
Made all things in pairs. 
To every foot its antipode ; 
Each color with its counter glowed ; 
To every tone beat answering tones, 
Higher or graver ; 
Flavor gladly blends with flavor ; 
Leaf answers leaf upon the bough ; 
And match the paired cotyledons. 
Hands to hands, and feet to feet, 
In one body grooms and brides ; 
Eldest rite, two married sides 
In every mortal meet. 



MERLIN. 189 

Light's far furnace shines, 
Smelting balls and bars, 
Forging double stars, 
Glittering twins and trines. 
The animals are sick with love, 
Lovesick with rhyme ; 
Each with all propitious time 
Into chorus wove. 

Like the dancers' ordered band, 

Thoughts come also hand in hand ; 

In equal couples mated, 

Or else alternated ; 

Adding by their mutual gage, 

One to other, health and age. 

Solitary fancies go 

Short-lived wandering to and fro, 

Most like to bachelors, 

Or an ungiven maid,. 

Not ancestors, 

With no posterity to make the lie afraid, 

Or keep truth undecayed. 



igo MERLIN. 

Perfect-paired as eagle's wings, 
Justice is the rhyme of things ; 
Trade and counting use 
The self-same tuneful muse ; 
And Nemesis, 

Who with even matches odd, 
Who athwart space redresses 
The partial wrong, 
Fills the just period, 
And finishes the song. 

Subtle rhymes, with ruin rife, 
Murmur in the house of life, 
Sung by the Sisters as they spin ; 
In perfect time and measure they 
Build and unbuild our echoing clay, 
As the two twilights of the day 
Fold us music-drunken in. 



BACCHUS. 



191 



BACCHUS. 




RING me wine, but wine which 
never grew 
In the belly of the grape, 
Or grew on vine whose tap-roots, reaching 

through 
Under the Andes to the Cape, 
Suffered no savor of the earth to scape. 



Let its grapes the morn salute 

From a nocturnal root, 

Which feels the acrid juice 

Of Styx and Erebus ; 

And turns the woe of Night, 

By its own craft, to a more rich delight. 



We buy ashes for bread ; 
We buy diluted wine ; 



192 BACCHUS. 

Give me of the true, — 

Whose ample leaves and tendrils curled 

Among the silver hills of heaven, 

Draw everlasting dew ; 

Wine of wine, 

Blood of the world, 

Form of forms, and mould of statures, 

That I intoxicated, 

And by the draught assimilated, 

May float at pleasure through all natures ; 

The bird-language rightly spell, 

And that which roses say so well 

Wine that is shed 

Like the torrents of the sun 

Up the horizon walls, 

Or like the Atlantic streams, which run 

When the South Sea calls. 

Water and bread, 

Food which needs no transmuting, 

Rainbow-flowering, wisdom-fruiting 



BACCHUS. 193 

Wine which is already man, 
Food which teach and reason can. 

Wine which Music is, — 

Music and wine are one, — 

That I, drinking this, 

Shall hear far Chaos talk with me ; 

Kings unborn shall walk with me ; 

And the poor grass shall plot and plan 

What it will do when it is man. 

Quickened so, will I unlock 

Every crypt of every rock. 

I thank the joyful juice 
For all I know ; — 
Winds of remembering 
Of the ancient being blow, 
And seeming-solid walls of use 
Open and flow. 

Pour, Bacchus ! the remembering wine ; 
Retrieve the loss of me and mine ! 



194 BACCHUS, 

Vine for vine be antidote, 

And the grape requite the lote ! 

Haste to cure the old despair, — 

Reason in Nature's lotus drenched, 

The memory of ages quenched ; 

Give them again to shine ; 

Let wine repair what this undid ; 

And where the infection slid, 

A dazzling memory revive ; 

Refresh the faded tints, 

Recut the aged prints, 

And write my old adventures with the pen 

Which on the first day drew, 

Upon the tablets blue, 

The dancing Pleiads and eternal men. 





LOSS AND GAIN. 195 



LOSS AND GAIN. 

IRTUE runs before the Muse, 
And defies her skill ; 
She is rapt, and doth refuse 
To wait a painter's will. 

Star-adoring, occupied, 

Virtue cannot bend her 
Just to please a poet's pride, 

To parade her splendor. 

The bard must be with good intent 

No more his, but hers ; 
Must throw away his pen and paint, 

Kneel with worshippers. 



196 LOSS AND GAIN. 

Then, perchance, a sunny ray 
From the heaven of fire 

His lost tools may overpay, 
And better his desire. 





MEROPS. 197 



MEROPS. 

HAT care I, so they stand the 
same, — 
Things of the heavenly mind, — 
How long the power to give them name 
Tarries yet behind ? 

Thus far to-day your favors reach, 
O fair, appeasing presences ! 

Ye taught my lips a single speech, 
And a thousand silences. 

Space grants beyond his fated road 

No inch to the god of day ; 
And copious language still bestowed 

One word, no more, to say. 



198 



THE HOUSE. 




THE HOUSE. 

HERE is no architect 

Can build as the Muse can ; 
She is skilful to select 
Materials for her plan ; 

Slow and warily to choose 

Rafters of immortal pine, 
Or cedar incorruptible, 

Worthy her design. 



She threads dark Alpine forests, 

Or valleys by the sea, 
In many lands, with painful steps, 

Ere she can find a tree. 



THE HOUSE. 199 

She ransacks mines and ledges, 

And quarries every rock, 
To hew the famous adamant 

For each eternal* block. 



She lays her beams in music, 

In music every one, 
To the cadence of the whirling world 

Which dances round the sun ; 

That so they shall not be displaced 

By lapses or by wars, 
But, for the love of happy souls, 

Outlive the newest stars. 




SAADI. 



SAADI. 




j?REES in groves, 

Kine in droves, 

In ocean sport the scaly herds, 
Wedge-like cleave the air the birds, 
To northern lakes fly wind-borne ducks, 
Browse the mountain sheep in flocks, 
Men consort in camp and town, 
But the poet dwells alone. 

God, who gave to him the lyre, 
Of all mortals the desire, 
For all breathing men's behoof, 
Straitly charged him, ' Sit aloof ; 
Annexed a warning, poets say, 
To the bright premium, — 
Ever, when twain together play. 
Shall the harp be dumb. 



Many may come, 

But one shall sing ; 

Two touch the string, 

The harp is dumb. 

Though there come a million, 

Wise Saadi dwells alone. 

Yet Saadi loved the race of men, — 

No churl, immured in cave or den ; 

In bower and hall 

He wants them all, 

Nor can dispense 

With Persia for his audience ; 

They must give ear, 

Grow red with joy and white with fear ; 

But he has no companion ; 

Come ten, or come a million, 

Good Saadi dwells alone. 

Be thou ware where Saadi dwells ; 
Wisdom of the gods is he, — 
Entertain it reverently. 



202 SAADI. 

Gladly round that golden lamp 

Sylvan deities encamp, 

And simple maids and noble youth 

Are welcome to the man of truth. 

Most welcome they who need him most, 

They feed the spring which they exhaust ; 

For greater need 

Draws better deed : 

But, critic, spare thy vanity, 

Nor show thy pompous parts, 

To vex with odious subtlety 

The cheerer of men's hearts. 

Sad-eyed Fakirs swiftly say 

Endless dirges to decay, 

Never in the blaze of light 

Lose the shudder of midnight ; 

Pale at overflowing noon 

Hear wolves barking at the moon ; 

In the bower of dalliance sweet 

Hear the far Avenger's feet ; 

And shake before those awful Powers, 



SAADI. 203 

Who in their pride forgive not ours. 
Thus the sad-eyed Fakirs preach : 
4 Bard, when thee would Allah teach, 
And lift thee to his holy mount, 
He sends thee from his bitter fount 
Wormwood, — saying, " Go thy ways, 
Drink not the Malaga of praise, 
But do the deed thy fellows hate, 
And compromise thy peaceful state ; 
Smite the white breasts which thee fed ; 
Stuff sharp thorns beneath the head 
Of them thou shouldst have comforted ; 
For out of woe and out of crime 
Draws the heart a lore sublime." ' 
And yet it seemeth not to me 
That the high gods love tragedy ; 
For Saadi sat in the sun, 
And thanks was his contrition ; 
For haircloth and for bloody whips, 
Had active hands and smiling lips ; 
And yet his runes he rightly read, 
And to his folk his message sped. 



204 SAADI. 

Sunshine in his heart transferred 
Lighted each transparent word, 
And well could honoring Persia learn 
What Saadi wished to say ; 
For Saadi's nightly stars did burn 
Brighter than Dschami's day. 

Whispered the Muse in Saadi's cot : 
' O gentle Saadi, listen not, 
Tempted by thy praise of wit, 
Or by thirst and appetite 
For the talents not thine own, 
To sons of contradiction. 
Never, son of eastern morning, 
Follow falsehood, follow scorning. 
Denounce who will, who will deny, 
And pile the hills to scale the sky ; 
Let theist, atheist, pantheist, 
Define and wrangle how they list, 
Fierce conserver, fierce destroyer, — 
But thou, joy-giver and enjoyer, 
Unknowing war, unknowing crime, 



SAADI. 205 

Gentle Saadi, mind thy rhyme ; 
Heed not what the brawlers say, 
Heed thou only Saadi's lay. 

i Let the great world bustle on 

With war and trade, with camp and town : 

A thousand men shall dig and eat ; 

At forge and furnace thousands sweat ; 

And thousands sail the purple sea, 

And give or take the stroke of war, 

Or crowd the market and bazaar ; 

Oft shall war end, and peace return, 

And cities rise where cities burn, 

Ere one man my hill shall climb, 

Who can turn the golden rhyme. 

Let them manage how they may, 

Heed thou only Saadi's lay. 

Seek the living among the dead, — 

Man in man is imprisoned ; 

Barefooted Dervish is not poor, 

If fate unlock his bosom's door, 

So that what his eye hath seen 



206 SAADI. 

His tongue can paint as bright, as keen ; 

And what his tender heart hath felt 

With equal fire thy heart shall melt. 

For, whom the Muses smile upon, 

And touch with soft persuasion, 

His words like a storm-wind can bring 

Terror and beauty on their wing ; 

In his every syllable 

Lurketh nature veritable ; 

And though he speak in midnight dark, - 

In heaven no star, on earth no spark, — 

Yet before the listener's eye 

Swims the world in ecstasy, 

The forest waves, the morning breaks, 

The pastures sleep, ripple the lakes, 

Leaves twinkle, flowers like persons be, 

And life pulsates in rock or tree. 

Saadi, so far thy words shall reach : 

Suns rise and set in Saadi's speech ! ' 

And thus to Saadi said the Muse : 

' Eat thou the bread which men refuse ; 






SAADI. 207 

Flee from the goods which from thee flee ; 

Seek nothing, — Fortune seeketh thee. 

Nor mount, nor dive ; all good things keep 

The midways of the eternal deep. 

Wish not to fill the isles with eyes 

To fetch thee birds of paradise : 

On thine orchard's edge belong 

All the brags of plume and song ; 

Wise Ali's sunbright sayings pass 

For proverbs in the market-place ; 

Through mountains bored by regal art, 

Toil whistles as he drives his cart. 

Nor scour the seas, nor sift mankind, 

A poet or a friend to find : 

Behold, he watches at the door ! 

Behold his shadow on the floor ! 

Open innumerable doors 

The heaven where unveiled Allah pours 

The flood of truth, the flood of good, 

The Seraph's and the Cherub's food : 

Those doors are men : the Pariah hind 

Admits thee to the perfect Mind. 



208 SAADI. 

Seek not beyond thy cottage wall 
Redeemers that can yield thee all : 
While thou sittest at thy door 
On the desert's yellow floor, 
Listening to the gray-haired crones, 
Foolish gossips, ancient drones, 
Saadi, see ! they rise in stature 
To the height of mighty Nature, 
And the secret stands revealed 
Fraudulent Time in vain concealed, - 
That blessed gods in servile masks 
Plied for thee thy household tasks.' 





HO LI DA VS. 209 



HOLIDAYS. 



ROM fall to spring the russet acorn, 
Fruit beloved of maid and boy, 
Lent itself beneath the forest 



To be the children's toy. 



Pluck it now ! In vain, — thou canst not ; 

Its root has pierced yon shady mound ^ 
Toy no longer — it has duties ; 

It is anchored in the ground. 



Year by year the rose-lipped maiden, 
Playfellow of young and old, 

Was frolic sunshine, dear to all men, 
More dear to one than mines of gold. 
14 



HOLIDA YS. 

Whither went the lovely hoyden ? 

Disappeared in blessed wife ; 
Servant to a wooden cradle, 

Living in a baby's life. 

Still thou playest ; — short vacation 
Fate grants each to stand aside ; 

Now must thou be man and artist, — 
'T is the turning of the tide. 




PAINTING AND SCULPTURE. 211 



PAINTING AND SCULPTURE. 




HE sinful painter drapes his god- 
dess warm, 
Because she still is naked, being 
dressed : 
The godlike sculptor will not so deform 
Beauty, which limbs and flesh enough invest. 




212 FROM THE PERSIAN OF HAFIZ. 



FROM THE PERSIAN OF HAFIZ. 



The poems of Hafiz are held by the Persians to be alle- 
goric and mystical. His German editor, Von Hammer, re- 
marks on the following poem, that, ' though in appearance 
anacreontic, it may be regarded as one of the best of those 
compositions which earned for Hafiz the honorable title of 
"Tongue of the Secret." ' 




UTLER, fetch the ruby wine 
Which with sudden greatness fills 



Pour for me, who in my spirit 
Fail in courage and performance. 
Bring this philosophic stone, 
Karun's treasure, Noah's age ; 
Haste, that by thy means I open 
All the doors of luck and life. 
Bring to me the liquid fire 
Zoroaster sought in dust : 



FROM THE PERSIAN OF HAFIZ. 213 

To Hafiz, revelling, 't is allowed 

To pray to Matter and to Fire. 

Bring the wine of Jamschid's glass, 

Which glowed, ere time was, in the Neant ; 

Bring it me, that through its force 

I, as Jamschid, see through worlds. 

Wisely said the Kaisar Jamschid, 

i The world 's not worth a barleycorn ' : 

Let flute and lyre lordly speak ; 

Lees of wine outvalue crowns. 

Bring me, boy, the veiled beauty, 

Who in ill-famed houses sits : 

Bring her forth ; my honest name 

Freely barter I for wine. 

Bring me, boy, the fire-water ; — 

Drinks the lion, the woods burn ; 

Give it me, that I storm heaven, 

And tear the net from the archwolf. 

Wine wherewith the Houris teach 

Souls the ways of paradise ! 

On the living coals I '11 set it, 

And therewith my brain perfume. 



214 FROM THE PERSIAN OF HAEIZ. 

Bring me wine, through whose effulgence 

Jam and Chosroes yielded light ; 

Wine, that to the flute I sing 

Where is Jam, and where is Kauss. 

Bring the blessing of old times, — 

Bless the old, departed shahs ! 

Bring me wine which spendeth lordship, 

Wine whose pureness searcheth hearts ; 

Bring it me, the shah of hearts ! 

Give me wine to wash me clean 

Of the weather-stains of cares, 

See the countenance of luck. 

Whilst I dwell in spirit-gardens, 

Wherefore stand I shackled here ? 

Lo, this mirror shows me all ! 

Drunk, I speak of purity, 

Beggar, I of lordship speak ; 

When Hafiz in his revel sings, 

Shouteth Sohra in her sphere. 

Fear the changes of a day : 
Bring wine which increases life. 



FROM THE PERSIAN OF HAFIZ. 215 

Since the world is all untrue, 

Let the trumpets thee remind 

How the crown of Kobad vanished. 

Be not certain of the world, — 

'T will not spare to shed thy blood. 

Desperate of the world's affair 

Came I running to the wine-house. 

Bring me wine which maketh glad, 

That I may my steed bestride, 

Through the course career with Rustem, — 

Gallop to my heart's content ; 

That I reason quite expunge, 

And plant banners on the worlds. 

Let us make our glasses kiss ; 

Let us quench the sorrow-cinders. 

To-day let us drink together ; 

Now and then will never agree. 

Whoso has arranged a banquet 

Is with glad mind satisfied, 

'Scaping from the snares of Dews. 

Woe for youth ! 't is gone in the wind : 

Happy he who spent it well ! 



216 FROM THE PERSIAN OF HAFIZ. 

Bring wine, that I overspring 
Both worlds at a single leap. 
Stole, at dawn, from glowing spheres 
Call of Houris to my sense : — 
' lovely bird, delicious soul, 
Spread thy pinions, break thy cage ; 
Sit on the roof of seven domes, 
Where the spirits take their rest.' 

In the time of Bisurdschimihr, 
Menutscheher's beauty shined. 
On the beaker of Nushirvan, 
Wrote they once in elder times, 
' Hear the counsel ; learn from us 
Sample of the course of things : 
The earth — it is a place of sorrow, 
Scanty joys are here below ; 
Who has nothing has no sorrow.' 
Where is Jam, and where his cup ? 
Solomon and his mirror, where ? 
Which of the wise masters knows 
What time Kauss and Jam existed ? 



FROM THE PERSIAN OF HAFIZ. 217 

When those heroes left this world, 
They left nothing but their names. 
Bind thy heart not to the earth ; 
When thou goest, come not back ; 
Fools spend on the world their hearts, -*■ 
League with it is feud with heaven : 
Never gives it what thou wishest. 

A cup of wine imparts the sight 

Of the five heaven-domes with nine steps : 

Whoso can himself renounce 

Without support shall walk thereon ; — 

Who discreet is is not wise. 

Give me, boy, the Kaisar cup, 
Which rejoices heart and soul. 
Under wine and under cup 
Signify we purest love. 
Youth like lightning disappears ; 
Life goes by us as the wind. % 
Leave the dwelling with six doors, 
And the serpent with nine heads ; 



218 FROM THE PERSIAN OF HAFIZ. 

Life and silver spend thou freely 
If thou honorest the soul. 
Haste into the other life ; 
All is vain save God alone. 
Give me, boy, this toy of Daemons : 
When the cup of Jam was lost, 
Him availed the world no more. 
Fetch the wineglass made of ice ; 
Wake the torpid heart with wine. 
Every clod of loam beneath us 
Is a skull of Alexander ; 
Oceans are the blood of princes ; 
Desert sands the dust of beauties. 
More than one Darius was there 
Who the whole world overcame ; 
But, since these gave up the ghost, 
Thinkest thou they never were ? 

Boy, go from me to the Shah ; 
Say to him, ' Shah, crowned as Jam, 
Win thou first the poor man's heart, 
Then the glass ; so know the world. 



FROM THE PERSIAN OF HAFIZ. 219 

Empty sorrows from the earth 
Canst thou drive away with wine. 
Now in thy throne's recent beauty, 
In the flowing tide of power, 
Moon of fortune, mighty king, 
Whose tiara sheddeth lustre, 
Peace secure to fish and fowl, 
Heart and eye-sparkle to saints ; — 
Shoreless is the sea of praise ; 
I content me with a prayer : — 
From Nisami's lyric page, 
Fairest ornament of speech, 
Here a verse will I recite, 
Verse more beautiful than pearls : 
" More kingdoms wait thy diadem 
Than are known to thee by name ; 
Thee may sovran Destiny 
Lead to victory day by day ! " ' 



GHASELLE. 



GHASELLE. 



FROM THE PERSIAN OF HAFIZ. 




F Paradise, O hermit wise, 

Let us renounce the thought ; 
Of old therein our names of sin 



Allah recorded not. 

Who dear to God on earthly sod 

No corn-grain plants, 
The same is glad that life is had, 

Though corn he wants. 



O just fakir, with brow austere, 
Forbid me not the vine ; 

On the first day, poor Hafiz' clay 
Was kneaded up with wine. 



GHASELLE. 221 

Thy mind the mosque and cool kiosk, 

Spare fast and orisons ; 
Mine me allows the drinking-house, 

And sweet chase of the nuns. 

He is no dervise, Heaven slights his service, 

Who shall refuse 
There in the banquet to pawn his blanket 

For Schiraz' juice. 

Who his friend's skirt or hem of his shirt 

Shall spare to pledge, 
To him Eden's bliss and angel's kiss 

Shall want their edge. 

Up ! Hafiz, grace from high God's face 

Beams on thee pure ; 
Shy thou not hell, and trust thou well, 

Heaven is secure. 



XENOPHANES, 



XENOPHANES. 




Y fate, not option, frugal Nature gave 
One scent to hyson and to wall- 
flower, 

One sound to pine-groves and to waterfalls 
One aspect to the desert and the lake. 
It was her stern necessity : all things 
Are of one pattern made ; bird, beast, and 

flower, 
Song, picture, form, space, thought, and 

character, 
Deceive us, seeming to be many things, 
And are but one. Beheld far off, they part 
As God and devil ; bring them to the mind, 
They dull its edge with their monotony. 
To know one element, explore another, 
And in the second reappears the first. 



XENOPHANES. 223 

The specious panorama of a year 
But multiplies the image of a day, — 
A belt of mirrors round a taper's flame ; 
And universal Nature, through her vast 
And crowded whole, an infinite paroquet, 
Repeats one note. 




224 THE DAY'S RATION. 



THE DAY'S RATION. 




HEN I was born, 
From all the seas of strength Fate 
filled a chalice, 
Saying, ' This be thy portion, child ; this 

chalice, 
Less than a lily's, thou shalt daily draw 
From my great arteries, — nor less, nor more.' 
All substances the cunning chemist Time 
Melts down into that liquor of my life, — 
Friends, foes, joys, fortunes, beauty, and 

disgust. 
And whether I am angry or content, 
Indebted or insulted, loved or hurt, 
All he distils into sidereal wine 
And brims my little cup ; heedless, alas ! 
Of all he sheds how little it will hold, 



THE DAY'S RATION. 22 s 

How much runs over on the desert sands. 

If a new Muse draw me with splendid ray, 

And I uplift myself into its heaven, 

The needs of the first sight absorb my blood, 

And all the following hours of the day 

Drag a ridiculous age. 

To-day, when friends approach, and every 

hour 
Brings book, or starbright scroll of genius, 
The little cup will hold not a bead more, 
And all the costly liquor runs to waste ; 
Nor gives the jealous lord one diamond drop 
So to be husbanded for poorer days. 
Why need I volumes, if one word suffice ? 
Why need I galleries, when a pupil's draught 
After the master's sketch fills and o'erfills 
My apprehension ? why seek Italy, 
Who cannot circumnavigate the sea 
Of thoughts and things at home, but still 

adjourn 
The nearest matters for a thousand days ? 

*5 



226 BLIGHT. 



BLIGHT. 




IVE me truths ; 
For I am weary of the surfaces, 
And die of inanition. If I knew 
Only the herbs and simples of the wood, 
Rue, cinquefoil, gill, vervain, and agrimony, 
Blue-vetch, and trillium, hawkweed, sassafras, 
Milkweeds, and murky brakes, quaint pipes, 

and sundew, 
And rare and virtuous roots, which in these 

woods 
Draw untold juices from the common earth, 
Untold, unknown, and I could surely spell 
Their fragrance, and their chemistry apply 
By sweet affinities to human flesh, 
Driving the foe and stablishing the friend, — 
O, that were much, and I could be a part 



BLIGHT. 227 

Of the round day, related to the sun 

And planted world, and full executor 

Of their imperfect functions. 

But these young scholars, who invade our hills, 

Bold as the engineer who fells the wood, 

And travelling often in the cut he makes, 

Love not the flower they pluck, and know it 

not, 
And all their botany is Latin names. 
The old men studied magic in the flowers, 
And human fortunes in astronomy, 
And an omnipotence in chemistry, 
Preferring things to names, for these were men, 
Were unitarians of the united world, 
And, wheresoever their clear eye-beams fell, 
They caught the footsteps of the Same. Our 

eyes 
Are armed, but we are strangers to the stars, 
And strangers to the mystic beast and bird, 
And strangers to the plant and to the mine. 
The injured elements say, ' Not in us ' ; 
And night and day, ocean and continent, 



228 BLIGHT. 

Fire, plant, and mineral say, ' Not in us/ 
And haughtily return us stare for stare. 
For we invade them impiously for gain ; 
We devastate them unreligiously, 
And coldly ask their pottage, not their love. 
Therefore they shove us from them, yield to us 
Only what to our griping toil is due ; 
But the sweet affluence of love and song, 
The rich results of the divine consents 
Of man and earth, of world beloved and lover, 
The nectar and ambrosia, are withheld ; 
And in the midst of spoils and slaves, we 

thieves 
And pirates of the universe, shut out 
Daily to a more thin and outward rind, 
Turn pale and starve. Therefore, to our sick 

eyes, 
The stunted trees look sick, the summer short, 
Clouds shade the sun, which will not tan our 

hay, 
And nothing thrives to reach its natural term ; 
And life, shorn of its venerable length, 



BLIGHT. 229 

Even at its greatest space is a defeat, 
And dies in anger that it was a dupe ; 
And, in its highest noon and wantonness, 
Is early frugal, like a beggar's child ; 
Even in the hot pursuit of the best aims 
And prizes of ambition, checks its hand, 
Like Alpine cataracts frozen as they leaped, 
Chilled with a miserly comparison 
Of the toy's purchase with the length of life. 







230 



MUSKETAQUID. 



MUSKETAQUID. 




E CAUSE I was content with these 
poor fields, 
Low, open meads, slender and slug- 
gish streams, 
And found a home in haunts which others 

scorned, 
The partial wood-gods overpaid my love, 
And granted me the freedom of their state, 
And in their secret senate have prevailed 
With the dear, dangerous lords that rule our 

life, 
Made moon and planets parties to their bond, 
And through my rock-like, solitary wont 
Shot million rays of thought and tenderness. 
For me, in showers, in sweeping showers, the 
spring 



MUSKETAQUID. 231 

Visits the valley ; — break away the clouds, — 
I bathe in the morn's soft and silvered air, 
And loiter willing by yon loitering stream. 
Sparrows far off, and nearer, April's bird, 
Blue-coated, — flying before from tree to tree, 
Courageous, sing a delicate overture 
To lead the tardy concert of the year. 
Onward and nearer rides the sun of May ; 
And wide around, the marriage of the plants 
Is sweetly solemnized. Then flows amain 
The surge of summer's beauty ; dell and crag, 
Hollow and lake, hill-side, and pine arcade, 
Are touched with genius. Yonder ragged cliff 
Has thousand faces in a thousand hours. 

Beneath low hills, in the broad interval 
Through which at will our Indian rivulet 
Winds mindful still of sannup and of squaw, 
Whose pipe and arrow oft the plough un- 

buries, 
Here in pine houses built of new fallen trees, 
Supplanters of the tribe, the farmers dwell. 



232 MUSKETAQUID. 

Traveller, to thee, perchance, a tedious road, 
Or, it may be, a picture ; to these men, 
The landscape is an armory of powers, 
Which, one by one, they know to draw and 

use. 
They harness beast, bird, insect, to their work ; 
They prove the virtues of each bed of rock, 
And, like the chemist 'mid his loaded jars, 
Draw from each stratum its adapted use 
To drug their crops or weapon their arts 

withal. 
They turn the frost upon their chemic heap, 
They set the wind to winnow pulse and grain, 
They thank the spring-flood for its fertile 

slime, 
And, on cheap summit-levels of the snow, 
Slide with the sledge to inaccessible woods 
O'er meadows bottomless. So, year by year, 
They fight the elements with elements, 
(That one would say, meadow and forest 

walked, 
Transmuted in these men to rule their like,) 



MUSKE TAQUID. 233 

And by the order in the field disclose 
The order regnant in the yeoman's brain. 

What these strong masters wrote at large in 

miles, 
I followed in small copy in my acre ; 
For there 's no rood has not a star above it ; 
The cordial quality of pear or plum 
Ascends as gladly in a single tree 
As in broad orchards resonant with bees ; 
And every atom poises for itself, 
And for the whole. The gentle deities 
Showed me the lore of colors and of sounds, 
The innumerable tenements of beauty, 
The miracle of generative force, 
Far-reaching concords of astronomy 
Felt in the plants, and in the punctual birds ; 
Better, the linked purpose of the whole, 
And, chiefest prize, found I true liberty 
In the glad home plain-dealing nature gave. 
The polite found me impolite ; the great 
Would mortify me, but in vain ; for still 



234 MUSKE TA Q UJD. 

I am a willow of the wilderness, 

Loving the wind that bent me. All my hurts 

My garden spade can heal. A woodland 

walk, 
A quest of river-grapes, a mocking thrush, 
A wild-rose, or rock-loving columbine, 
Salve my worst wounds. 
For thus the wood-gods murmured in my ear : 
' Dost love our manners ? Canst thou silent 

lie? 
Canst thou, thy pride forgot, like nature pass 
Into the winter night's extinguished mood ? 
Canst thou shine now, then darkle, 
And being latent feel thyself no less ? 
As, when the all-worshipped moon attracts 

the eye, 
The river, hill, stems, foliage are obscure 
Yet envies none, none are unenviable.' 



DIRGE. 235 




DIRGE. 

NOWS he who tills this lonely field, 

To reap its scanty corn, 
What mystic fruit his acres yield 
At midnight and at morn ? 

In the long sunny afternoon, 
The plain was full of ghosts ; 

I wandered up, I wandered down, 
Beset by pensive hosts. 



The winding Concord gleamed below. 

Pouring as wide a flood 
As when my brothers, long ago, 

Came with me to the wood. 



236 DIRGE. 

But they are gone, — the holy ones 
Who trod with me this lovely vale ; 

The strong, star-bright companions 
Are silent, low, and pale. 

My good, my noble, in their prime, 
Who made this world the feast it was, 

Who learned with me the lore of time, 
Who loved this dwelling-place ! 

They took this valley for their toy, 
They played with it in every mood ; 

A cell for prayer, a hall for joy, — 
They treated nature as they would. 

They colored the horizon round ; 

Stars flamed and faded as they bade ; 
All echoes hearkened for their sound, — 

They made the woodlands glad or mad. 

I touch this flower of silken leaf, 
Which once our childhood knew ; 



DIRGE. 237 

Its soft leaves wound me with a grief 
Whose balsam never grew. 

Hearken to yon pine-warbler 

Singing aloft in the tree ! 
Hearest thou, O traveller, 

What he singeth to me ? 

Not unless God made sharp thine ear 

With sorrow such as mine, 
Out of that delicate lay couldst thou 

Its heavy tale divine. 

' Go, lonely man,' it saith ; 

' They loved thee from their birth , 
Their hands were pure, and pure their faith, — 
* There are no such hearts on earth, 

' Ye drew one mother's milk, 

One chamber held ye all ; 
A very tender history 

Did in your childhood fall. 



238 



' Ye cannot unlock your heart, 
The key is gone with them ; 

The silent organ loudest chants 
The master's requiem. 




THRENODY. 239 




THRENODY. 

PHE South-wind brings 
Life, sunshine, and desire, 
And on every mount and meadow 
Breathes aromatic fire ; 
But over the dead he has no power, 
The lost, the lost, he cannot restore ; 
And, looking over the hills, I mourn 
The darling who shall not return. 

I see my empty house, 
I see my trees repair their boughs ; 
And he, the wondrous child, 
Whose silver warble wild 
Outvalued every pulsing sound 
Within the air's cerulean round, — 



240 THRENODY. 

The hyacinthine boy, for whom 

Morn well might break and April bloom, — 

The gracious boy, who did adorn 

The world whereinto he was born, 

And by his countenance repay 

The favor of the loving Day, — 

Has disappeared from the Day's eye ; 

Far and wide she cannot find him ; 

My hopes pursue, they cannot bind him. 

Returned this day, the south-wind searches, 

And finds young pines and budding birches ; 

But finds not the budding man ; 

Nature, who lost, cannot remake him ; 

Fate let him fall, Fate can't retake him : 

Nature, Fate, men, him seek in vain. 

And whither now, my truant wise and sweet, 

O, whither tend thy feet ? 

I had the right, few days ago, 

Thy steps to watch, thy place to know ; 

How have I forfeited the right ? 

Hast thou forgot me in a new delight ? 



THRENODY. 241 

I hearken for thy household cheer, 

O eloquent child \ 

Whose voice, an equal messenger, 

Conveyed thy meaning mild. 

What though the pains and joys 

Whereof it spoke were toys 

Fitting his age and ken, 

Yet fairest dames and bearded men, 

Who heard the sweet request, 

So gentle, wise, and grave, 

Bended with joy to his behest, 

And let the world's affairs go by, 

Awhile to share his cordial game, 

Or mend his wicker wagon-frame, 

Still plotting how their hungry ear 

That winsome voice again might hear ; 

For his lips could well pronounce 

Words that were persuasions. 

Gentlest guardians marked serene 
His early hope, his liberal mien ; 
Took counsel from his guiding eyes 
16 



242 THRENODY. 

To make this wisdom earthly wise. 
Ah, vainly do these eyes recall 
The school-march, each day's festival, 
When every morn my bosom glowed 
To watch the convoy on the road ; 
The babe in willow wagon closed, 
With rolling eyes and face composed : 
With children forward and behind, 
Like Cupids studiously inclined ; 
And he the chieftain paced beside, 
The centre of the troop allied, 
With sunny face of sweet repose, 
To guard the babe from fancied foes. 
The little captain innocent 
Took the eye with him as he went ; 
Each village senior paused to scan 
And speak the lovely caravan. 
From the window I look out 
To mark thy tjeautiful parade, 
Stately marching in cap and coat 
To some tune by fairies played ; — 
A music heard by thee alone 
To works as noble led thee on. 



THRENODY. 243 

Now Love and Pride, alas ! in vain, 

Up and down their glances strain. 

The painted sled stands where it stood ; 

The kennel by the corded wood ; 

The gathered sticks to stanch the wall 

Of the snow-tower, when snow should fall ; 

The ominous hole he dug in the sand, 

And childhood's castles built or planned ; 

His daily haunts I well discern, — 

The poultry-yard, the shed, the barn, — 

And every inch of garden ground 

Paced by the blessed feet around, 

From the roadside to the brook 

Whereinto he loved to look. 

Step the meek birds where erst they ranged ; 

The wintry garden lies unchanged ; 

The brook into the stream runs on ; 

But the deep-eyed boy is gone. 

On that shaded day, 

Dark with more clouds than tempests are, 

When thou didst yield thy innocent breath 



244 , THRENODY. 

In birdlike heavings unto death, 

Night came, and Nature had not thee ; 

I said, ' We are mates in misery.' 

The morrow dawned with needless glow ; 

Each snowbird chirped, each fowl must crow ; 

Each tramper started ; but the feet 

Of the most beautiful and sweet 

Of human youth had left the hill 

And garden, — they were bound and still 

There 's not a sparrow or a wren, 

There 's not a blade of autumn grain, 

Which the four seasons do not tend, 

And tides of life and increase lend ; 

And every chick of every bird, 

And weed and rock-moss is preferred. 

O ostrich-like forgetfulness ! 

O loss of larger in the less ! 

Was there no star that could be sent, 

No watcher in the firmament, 

No angel from the countless host 

That loiters round the crystal coast, 



THRENODY. 245 

Could stoop to heal that only child, 

Nature's sweet marvel undefiled, 

And keep the blossom of the earth, 

Which all her harvests were not worth ? 

Not mine, — I never called thee mine, 

But Nature's heir, — if I repine, 

And seeing rashly torn and moved 

Not what I made, but what I loved, 

Grow early old with grief that thou 

Must to the wastes of Nature go, — 

'T is because a general hope 

Was quenched, and all must doubt and grope. 

For flattering planets seemed to say 

This child should ills of ages stay, 

By wondrous tongue, and guided pen, 

Bring the flown Muses back to men. 

Perchance not he but Nature ailed, 

The world and not the infant failed. 

It was not ripe yet to sustain 

A genius of so fine a strain, 

Who gazed upon the sun and moon 

As if he came unto his own, 



246 THRENODY. 

And, pregnant with his grander thought, 
Brought the old order into doubt. 
His beauty once their beauty tried ; 
They could not feed him, and he died, 
And wandered backward as in scorn, 
To wait an aeon to be born. 
Ill day which made this beauty waste, 
Plight broken, this high face defaced ! 
Some went and came about the dead ; 
And some in books of solace read ; 
Some to their friends the tidings say ; 
Some went to write, some went to pray ; 
One tarried here, there hurried one ; 
But their heart abode with none. 
Covetous death bereaved us all, 
To aggrandize one funeral. 
The eager fate which carried thee 
Took the largest part of me : 
For this losing is true dying ; 
This is lordly man's down-lying, 
This his slow but sure reclining, 
Star by star his world resigning. 



THRENODY. 247 

child of paradise, 

Boy who made dear his father's home, 

In whose deep eyes 

Men read the welfare of the times to come, 

1 am too much bereft. 

The world dishonored thou hast left. 
O truth's and nature's costly lie ! 
O trusted broken prophecy ! 
O richest fortune sourly crossed ! 
Born for the future, to the future lost ! 

The deep Heart answered, ' Weepest thou ? 

Worthier cause for passion wild 

If I had not taken the child. 

And deemest thou as those who pore, 

With aged eyes, short way before, — 

Think'st Beauty vanished from the coast 

Of matter, and thy darling lost ? 

Taught he not thee — the man of eld, 

Whose eyes within his eyes beheld 

Heaven's numerous hierarchy span 

The mystic gulf from God to man ? 



248 THRENODY. 

To be alone wilt thou begin 

When worlds of lovers hem thee in ? 

To-morrow, when the masks shall fall 

That dizen Nature's carnival, 

The pure shall see by their own will, 

Which overflowing Love shall fill, 

'T is not within the force of fate 

The fate-conjoined to separate. 

But thou, my votary, weepest thou ? 

I gave thee sight — where is it now ? 

I taught thy heart beyond the reach 

Of ritual, bible, or of speech ; 

Wrote in thy mind's transparent table, 

As far as the incommunicable ; 

Taught thee each private sign to raise, 

Lit by the supersolar blaze. 

Past utterance, and past belief, 

And past the blasphemy of grief, 

The mysteries of Nature's heart ; 

And though no Muse can these impart, 

Throb thine with Nature's throbbing breast, 

And all is clear from east to west. 



THRENODY. 249 

' I came to thee as to a friend ; 
Dearest, to thee I did not send 
Tutors, but a joyful eye, 
Innocence that matched the sky, 
Lovely locks, a form of wonder, 
Laughter rich as woodland thunder, 
That thou might'st entertain apart 
The richest flowering of all art : 
And, as the great all-loving Day 
Through smallest chambers takes its way, 
That thou might'st break thy daily bread 
With prophet, savior, and head ; 
That thou might'st cherish for thine own 
The riches of sweet Mary's Son, 
Boy-Rabbi, Israel's paragon. 
And thoughtest thou such guest 
Would in thy hall take up his rest ? 
Would rushing life forget her laws, 
Fate's glowing revolution pause ? 
High omens ask diviner guess ; 
Not to be conned tb tediousness. 
And know my higher gifts unbind 



250 THRENODY. 

The zone that girds the incarnate mind. 
When the scanty shores are full 
With Thought's perilous, whirling pool ; 
Wlien frail Nature can no more, 
Then the Spirit strikes the hour : 
My servant Death, with solving rite, 
Pours finite into infinite. 

' Wilt thou freeze love's tidal flow, 

Whose streams through nature circling go ? 

Nail the wild star to its track 

On the half-climbed zodiac ? 

Light is light which radiates, 

Blood is blood which circulates, 

Life is life which generates, 

And many-seeming life is one, — 

Wilt thou transfix and make it none ? 

Its onward force too starkly pent 

In figure, bone, and lineament ? 

Wilt thou, uncalled, interrogate, 

Talker ! the unreplying Fate ? 

Nor see the genius of the whole 



THRENODY. 251 

Ascendant in the private soul, 

Beckon it when to go and come, 

Self-announced its hour of doom ? 

Fair the soul's recess and shrine, 

Magic-built to last a season ; 

Masterpiece of love benign ; 

Fairer that expansive reason 

Whose omen 't is, and sign. 

Wilt thou not ope thy heart to know 

What rainbows teach, and sunsets show ? 

Verdict which accumulates 

From lengthening scroll of human fates, 

Voice of earth to earth returned, 

Prayers of saints that inly burned, — 

Saying, What is excellent, 

As God lives, is permanent j 

Hearts are dust, hearts' loves remain; 

Hearfs love will meet thee again. 

Revere the Maker ; fetch thine eye 

Up to his style, and manners of the sky. 

Not of adamant and gold 

Built he heaven stark and cold ; 



2.52 THRENODY. 

No, but a nest of bending reeds, 
Flowering grass, and scented weeds ; 
Or like a traveller's fleeing tent, 
Or bow above the tempest bent ; 
Built of tears and sacred flames, 
And virtue reaching to its aims ; 
Built of furtherance and pursuing, 
Not of spent deeds, but of doing. 
Silent rushes the swift Lord 
Through ruined systems still restored, 
Broadsowing, bleak and void to bless,- 
Plants with worlds the wilderness ; 
Waters with tears of ancient sorrow 
Apples of Eden ripe to-morrow, 
House and tenant go to ground, 
Lost in God, in Godhead found.' 




HYMN. 253 



HYMN: 



SUNG AT THE COMPLETION OF THE CONCORD MONUMENT, 
April 19, 1836. 




Y the rude bridge that arched the 
flood, 
Their flag to April's breeze un- 
furled, 
Here once the embattled farmers stood, 
And fired the shot heard round the world. 

The foe long since in silence slept ; 

Alike the conqueror silent sleeps ; 
And Time the ruined bridge has swept 

Down the dark stream which seaward creeps. 

On this green bank, by this soft stream, 
We set to-day a votive stone ; 



254 HYMN. 

That memory may their deed redeem, 
When, like our sires, our sons are gone. 

Spirit, that made those heroes dare 
To die, or leave their children free, 

Bid Time and Nature gently spare 
The shaft we raise to them and thee. 




Cambridge : Printed by Welch, Bigelow, & Co. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

015 785 898 1 



